Against Celsus, Book 4

Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

Having gone through, in the three books before this one, our thoughts on Celsus's treatise, holy Ambrose, we now dictate a fourth, praying to God through Christ concerning what follows. May words be given to us of the kind written about in Jeremiah, where the Lord says to the prophet: "See, I have put my words as fire in your mouth. See, I have set

you today over nations and kingdoms, so that you may root out and pull down, may destroy and throw down, may build and plant." For we too now need words that root out, from every soul, what has been said against the truth and harmed by Celsus's treatise or by notions like his. And we also need thoughts that pull down every structure of false opinion, including the structure Celsus himself

built in his treatise, resembling the structure raised by those who declared, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach to heaven"; but we also need a wisdom that throws down every height that raises itself up "against the knowledge of God," including the "height" of arrogance that Celsus "raises up" against us. Then, since we must not stop at "rooting out and pulling down" the

things already mentioned, but must plant, in the place of what has been uprooted, the planting of God's own husbandry, and build, in the place of what has been thrown down, a building of God and a temple of God's glory — for this reason we too must pray to the Lord who gave what is written in Jeremiah, that he give us words also for building up the things of Christ and for planting

the spiritual law and the prophetic words that correspond to it. And we especially need, for what Celsus says next after what has already been discussed, to establish that the things concerning Christ were well prophesied. For Celsus, taking a stand against both sides at once — Jews who deny that Christ's coming has happened but hope it will be, and Christians who confess that Jesus is the

Christ who was prophesied — says: "And that some Christians and some Jews — the one group saying a god or a son of god has come down to the earth, the other that he will come down — as a judge of the people here, this is most shameful, and the refutation does not even need a long argument." And he seems to speak precisely about the Jews, not some of them but all, saying that they think someone will come down to the

earth, and about the Christians, that some of them say he has already come down. For he indicates those who establish, from the Jewish scriptures, that Christ's coming has already happened, and he appears aware that certain sects exist which deny that Jesus Christ is the one prophesied. Now, we have already, in the earlier books, treated as fully as we could the prophesying of Christ, and so we do not repeat here most of what could be said on that point, so as not to say the same things twice. Observe, then, that

if Celsus wished, with even some semblance of coherence, to overturn the belief concerning the prophecies about Christ's coming or having come, he ought to have set out the very prophecies which we Christians and Jews use when arguing with one another; for in that way he would have seemed at least to

drawn about by what he thinks is plausibility, seeming to overturn assent to the prophetic writings and, on account of the prophetic writings, faith that Jesus is the Christ. But as it now stands, either being unable to answer the prophecies concerning Christ, or not even knowing from the outset what the things prophesied about him are, he cites no prophetic text at all, even though

there are countless ones concerning Christ, yet he supposes he is accusing the prophetic writings without even setting out whatever plausible objection he might have raised against them. He does not know, however, that the Jews do not really say that it is God, or the Son of God, who is to come down as the Christ, as we have also said above. And having said that we call him one who has come down, while the Jews say a righteous judge is to come down,

he thinks he is thereby accusing what is said of being utterly shameful and not even needing a lengthy refutation, and he says: "What is the point of such a descent for God?" not seeing that on our view too there is a point to the descent. Its primary purpose is what the gospel states, to bring back "Israel's stray sheep," and secondarily, because of their disobedience, to take away from them

the kingdom of God, so called, and to give it to "other tenant farmers" — Christians, as opposed to the Jews of old — who will render its "fruits" to God "in their" appointed "seasons," every deed being a fruit of the kingdom. We, then, have said a few things out of many in reply to Celsus's question, when he asks: "What is the point of such a descent for God?" But Celsus

sets forth for himself things said by neither the Jews nor by us, saying: "Or was it so that he might learn what goes on among men?" For none of us claims that Christ takes up residence among the living so as to discover human affairs. Then, as though some had said "so that he might learn what goes on among men," he raises against himself in reply: "Does he not then know everything?" Then, as though we would answer

that he does know, he again raises a difficulty, saying: "So does he know, yet not correct it, being unable by divine power to correct it?" And all this too he says foolishly. For God, through his own Word, passing down through the generations into holy souls and making them friends of God and prophets, is always correcting those who hear what is said; and in the coming of Christ too

he corrects, through the teaching in keeping with Christianity, not people who are unwilling, but rather those who have selected the finer life, the one that pleases God. And I do not know what sort of correction Celsus wanted to occur when he raised the difficulty, saying: "Is it not possible for him to correct by divine power, unless he sends someone for this purpose by natural means?" For did he want the correction to happen for men who merely imagine it,

while God, having all at once taken away wickedness and implanted virtue, brought the correction about wholesale? Someone else may inquire whether such a thing is consistent, or possible, for nature; but we would say: granted, let it even be possible — where then is what is up to us, and where is the praiseworthy assent to the truth, or the acceptable turning away from falsehood?

But even if this were granted—both that it is possible and that it happens fittingly—why would one not rather inquire into the origin of the matter, saying something analogous to Celsus, that it was not possible for God by divine power to make human beings not in need of correction but good and perfect from the start, evil not even having arisen in the first place to begin with? These arguments can carry away the uninstructed and

the unintelligent, but not one who looks closely at the nature of things—because if you remove the voluntary from virtue, you have removed its very essence along with it. A whole treatise is needed for these matters, about which the Greeks too have said not a little in their works on providence—Greeks who would not have said what Celsus has set out, saying: he knows, but he does not correct,

nor is it possible for him to correct by divine power. We too have spoken about these matters in many places, as far as we were able, and the divine scriptures have set them before those able to hear them. So we shall say back to him what Celsus brings against us and the Jews, and turn it against him: does the God who is over all know what is in human beings, or does he not know? But

if indeed you hold that God and providence exist, as your treatise indicates, then he must necessarily know. And if he knows, why does he not correct? Perhaps we must give an account of why, though he knows, he does not correct—but for you, who do not entirely show yourself an Epicurean through your treatise, but rather pretend to acknowledge providence, the same question will not be put on equal terms: why, knowing what is in human beings,

does God not correct everything, nor by divine power free everyone from evil? But we are not ashamed to say that he is always sending those who will bring correction; for the arguments that call people toward what is best are present among human beings, since God has given them. Already there are many differences among those who serve God, and few are those who proclaim the things of truth in every respect and purely,

accomplishing complete correction—such as Moses and the prophets were. But beyond all of these, great is the correction brought through Jesus, who did not wish only those in one corner of the inhabited world to be cared for, but, as far as it depended on him, those everywhere; for he came as "savior of all people." After this the most noble Celsus, taking up an objection from I do not know where, raises a difficulty against

us, as though we said that God himself comes down to human beings, and he supposes that this entails his abandoning his own seat. For God's power is unknown to him, along with the truth that "the spirit of the Lord fills the whole inhabited world, and that which binds all things together perceives what is spoken," nor can he grasp, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," nor

does he see that according to the teaching of the Christians all people "live and move and have their being in him," as Paul also taught in his speech before the Athenians. So then, even if the God of the universe, by his own power, condescends together with Jesus into the life of human beings, and even if the Word—"in the beginning with God," and "God" himself—comes to

...us. He does not leave his seat, nor abandon his own throne, as though one place were left empty by him and another filled which did not have him before. Rather, the power and divinity of God visits whomever he wills and finds room wherever he finds it, without changing place or leaving his own place empty and filling another. For even if we were to say that he leaves and...

...fills someone else, we will not be declaring any such thing about place; rather, we will say that the soul of the base person, dissolved in wickedness, has been forsaken by God, while we will declare that the soul of one who wishes to live according to virtue, or is progressing in it, or is already living by it, is filled with, or partakes of, the divine spirit. There is therefore no need, for the descent of Christ,

or for God's turning toward mankind, that a greater seat be left behind and that the things here below be changed, as Celsus supposes when he says: "For if you were to change even the smallest of the things here, everything would be overturned and gone for you." But if one must speak of someone being changed by the presence of God's power and the visitation of the Word among men, we will not hesitate to say that he is changed from base to

refined, from licentious to self-controlled, and from superstitious to pious — namely, the one who has received the visitation of the Word of God into his own soul. But if you also want us to respond to the most laughable of Celsus's claims, hear him saying: "But surely, since God is unknown among men and on this account seems to be at a disadvantage, he would wish to be known, and to put to the test

both those who believe and those who do not, just like men newly rich among mankind making a show of themselves?" Indeed, they bear witness to a great and thoroughly mortal love of honor on God's part. We say, then, that when God is unknown to base men, it is not because he himself seems to be at a disadvantage that he would wish to be known, but because the knowledge of him frees the one who knows him from misery. Nor is it because he wishes to put to the test those who believe or

those who do not, that he himself visits certain people by an ineffable and divine power, or sends his Christ; but rather so that those who believe and grasp his divinity may be freed from all misery, while those who do not believe no longer have any room for an excuse, as though they had not believed on account of not having heard and been taught. What argument, then, establishes that it follows for us that God, according to

our account, is like the men newly rich among mankind making a show of themselves? For God does not make a show of himself before us, wishing us to understand and perceive his surpassing excellence; rather, wanting to implant in us the blessedness that arises in our souls from knowing him, he works through Christ and the ever-continuing visitation of the Word to bring us back into kinship with himself. No

mortal love of honor, then, does the teaching of the Christians bear witness to on God's part. It puzzles me, though, how he can babble so pointlessly against what we set forth, and then, further along, state that God, not needing to be known for his own sake but for the sake of our salvation, wishes to grant us knowledge of himself, so that those who receive it, having become good, may be saved, while those who do not receive it, having been shown to be wicked, may be punished. And having set this forth,

He raises this sort of difficulty, saying: has God only now, after so long an age, remembered to set human life right, while neglecting it before? To this we shall say that God never was without the wish to set human life right; rather he was always caring for it, giving occasions for virtue by which the rational creature could correct itself. For in every generation the wisdom of

God, passing into souls that it finds holy, makes them friends of God and prophets. And one could find in the sacred books, generation by generation, those who were holy and receptive of the divine spirit, and how they turned their contemporaries back, as far as they were able. It is nothing to marvel at that in certain generations there arose prophets who surpassed others in their reception of the divine, on account of a life that was

more vigorous and robust than that of other prophets, some contemporaries of theirs, others earlier or later. So it is not to be wondered at that there also came a certain moment when something exceptional visited the human race, differing from those who came before it or even after it. But the account of these matters holds something more mysterious and deeper, and one that cannot fully

reach the ears of the common crowd. And it is necessary, in order that these things be made clear and a reply given to what is said about the coming of Christ - namely, has God only now, after so long an age, remembered to set the human race right, while neglecting it before? - to take up the account concerning the portions and to make it clear why, "as the Most High apportioned out the nations, as he scattered abroad the sons of

Adam, he set the nations' boundaries to match the number of God's angels; and the Lord's portion came to be his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance." We must next explain why each boundary's peoples arose under the one to whom that boundary was allotted, and why it was fitting that "the Lord's portion came to be his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance," and why formerly it was "the Lord's portion,

his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance," while concerning the later peoples it is said to the Savior by the Father: "Request this from me, and I will grant you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession." For there are certain connections and sequences, ineffable and indescribable, concerning the varied dispensation exercised over human souls. He came, then,

even if Celsus does not wish it, after many prophets who set right the affairs of that Israel, as the one who set right the whole world - Christ - who, under the former dispensation, had no need to make use of scourges and bonds and instruments of torture against human beings; for the teaching sufficed, when "the sower went out to sow," that he might sow the word everywhere. But if a certain time is fixed, which circumscribes the

world with the circumscription that necessarily follows from its having had a beginning, and a certain end is fixed for the world, and following that end there comes a just judgment concerning all things, then it will be necessary for the one who philosophizes to establish the substance of the account with proofs of every kind, both from the divine writings and from the sequence found within the arguments themselves, while it will be necessary for the great mass of people, who are simpler and unable

to follow the most varied contemplations of the wisdom of God, entrusting himself to God and to the savior of our race, is content with this "he himself said" more than with anyone else's. After this, again, as is his custom, Celsus, having established and demonstrated nothing, as though we spoke of God neither piously nor reverently, says: that we do not do so piously

nor reverently prattle on about God is obvious, and he supposes that we do this to strike the uneducated with astonishment, not because we speak the truth about the punishments necessary for those who have sinned. For this reason he makes us out to resemble the people who, during the Bacchic rites, bring forward apparitions and terrors beforehand. Now as for the Bacchic rites, whether there is some plausible account of them or none at all,

let the Greeks say, and let Celsus and his fellow-initiates listen; but we make our defense concerning our own affairs, saying that our aim is to set right the human race, whether through threatening punishments we hold to be unavoidable for the universe as a whole—and perhaps not without benefit even to those destined to undergo them—or through promises given to the ones who have led good lives, which encompass

the blessed manner of life in the kingdom of God for those worthy to be ruled by him. After this, wishing to show that we say nothing paradoxical or new about the flood or the conflagration, but that we, having overheard what is said among Greeks or barbarians on these matters, have come to believe our own scriptures about them, he says this: this too occurred to them from having overheard those accounts,

namely that according to vast cycles of time and the recurring returns and alignments of the stars, conflagrations and floods occur, and that after the last flood, the one in the time of Deucalion, the cycle, according to the periodic exchange of all things, requires a conflagration; this led them, through a mistaken opinion, to say that God will come down bringing fire, like a torturer. To this we shall reply that I do not know

how it is that Celsus, who has read much and shown that he knows many histories, paid no attention to the antiquity of Moses, though it is recorded by some Greek historians that he lived during the era of Inachus, son of Phoroneus; and among the Egyptians too he is acknowledged to be most ancient, and likewise among those who have written the Phoenician histories. And whoever wishes may read Flavius Josephus's two books concerning the antiquity of the Jews,

so that he might understand just how much earlier Moses lived than those who said that, according to long periods of time, floods and conflagrations occur in the world—accounts which Celsus says the Jews and Christians overheard and, not understanding them, spoke of the conflagration by saying that God will come down bringing fire, like a torturer. Now whether there are indeed such periods, and floods or conflagrations occurring according to periods, or

whether there are not, and whether reason has knowledge of this too—as it does in many matters, and as Solomon says: "What has come to be? The very thing that will come to be. And what has been done? The very thing that will be done," and so on—it is not for the present occasion to say. For it suffices merely to note that Moses and some of the prophets, being the most ancient of men, did not

They did not take their account of the world's conflagration from others; rather, if we must speak with an eye to chronology, other people, mishearing them and failing to grasp precisely what they said, fashioned a fiction of periodic cycles that are identical and indistinguishable in their own particular qualities and in the events that befall them. We, however, attribute neither the flood nor the conflagration to celestial cycles and the revolutions of the stars, but say that their cause

is wickedness, which pours itself out ever more, and which is purged by a flood or by a conflagration. And if the prophetic voices speak of God descending — he who declared, "Do I not fill the heaven and the earth? says the Lord" — we take this as figurative language. For God descends from his own greatness and height whenever he administers the affairs of human beings, especially the wicked. And just as

it is customary to say that teachers come down to the level of infants, and that the wise, or those who are making progress, come down to the level of the young who have only just been drawn toward philosophy — not by descending bodily — so too, if it is anywhere said in the divine scriptures that God descends, this is to be understood by analogy with this customary use of the word, and likewise with his ascending. Now since Celsus, mocking us, says

that we say God comes down bearing fire like a torturer, and forces us — though it is not the occasion for it — to examine deeper arguments, we will say a little, just enough to give the hearers a taste of a defense that demolishes Celsus's mockery of us, and then move on to what comes next. Sacred scripture calls our God "a consuming fire," and speaks of "rivers of fire" being drawn out before him, and states too that he himself

enters "like the fire of a furnace and like the fuller's herb," in order to smelt his own people. So then, when it is said that he is "a consuming fire," we ask what it is fitting for God to consume, and we say that it is wickedness and the deeds that proceed from it — spoken of figuratively as "wood," "hay," and "stubble" — that God consumes like fire; for the wicked person is said to "build upon" the

rational foundation already laid, "wood," "hay," and "stubble." Now if someone can show that the writer understood these things differently, and can present, in a bodily sense, the wicked person building "wood" or "hay" or "stubble," then clearly the fire too will be understood as material and perceptible; but if the works of the wicked are plainly spoken of figuratively as "wood" or "hay" or "stubble,"

how does it not follow at once what sort of fire is meant, that such "wood" might be consumed? For it says, "Each man's work, of whatever sort it is, the fire itself will test; if anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward; if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss." And what work being burned up could be meant here except everything done out of wickedness? Therefore our God

is "a consuming fire," as we have explained, and thus he "enters like the fire of a furnace," to smelt the rational nature — filled with the lead of wickedness and the other impure materials, of those who have adulterated the nature of the gold, if I may so call it, or of the silver, of the soul. And in this same way "rivers of fire" are described as flowing "before" God, the one who will utterly efface the

...evil mixed into the soul — but these points suffice to show that it was a mistaken opinion that made them say that God will come down like a torturer, bringing fire. Let us also look at what Celsus says next, with great pomp, in this manner: "Further," he says, "let us take up the argument again from the beginning with more proofs. I say nothing new, but things long since held as doctrine: God"

is good and beautiful and blessed, and exists in the most beautiful and best state. If, then, he comes down to men, he needs to change — a change from good to bad, from beautiful to shameful, from blessedness to wretchedness, and from the best to the most wicked. Who, then, would choose such a change? And indeed, it belongs to the mortal's nature

to be altered and reshaped, while it belongs to the immortal's nature to remain in the same state and in like manner. God, then, would not admit even this kind of change. It seems to me that the necessary reply to this has already been given, once we have explained the descent of God to human affairs spoken of in the scriptures — a descent for which he has no need of change, as Celsus supposes us to say, nor of any turning

from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from blessedness to wretchedness, or from the best to the most wicked. For, remaining unchangeable in his essence, he comes down together with his providence and his administration to human affairs. We, then, produce also the divine scriptures declaring God to be unchangeable, both in "But you are the same"

and in "I have not changed." But the gods of Epicurus, formed out of atoms and, insofar as their makeup is concerned, liable to dissolve, labor to shed the atoms that produce decay; and even the god of the Stoics, since he is in fact a body, at one time has his entire substance as ruling faculty, whenever the conflagration occurs, but at another time comes to exist only in part of it, whenever there is

an ordered arrangement of the world. For these thinkers have not been able to articulate clearly the natural conception of God as wholly incorruptible and simple and uncomposite and indivisible. But that which came down to men existed "in the form of God," and through love of humanity "emptied himself," so that he might be able to be contained by men — yet it was certainly not that a change from good to bad occurred in him, for he "committed no sin," nor"

from beautiful to shameful, for "sin he did not know," and he did not descend from blessedness into wretchedness, but he "humbled himself," and was no less blessed even while he was humbling himself for the benefit of our race; nor did any change occur in him from the best to the most wicked — for how could what is good and loving toward humanity be the most wicked? Or is it now time to say also of

the physician who looks upon dreadful things and touches unpleasant things in order to heal the sick, that he goes from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from blessedness to wretchedness? And yet the physician, in looking upon dreadful things and touching unpleasant things, does not altogether escape the possibility of falling into the same afflictions himself; but he who cures "the wounds" of our souls by means of the

the Word of God was itself incapable of admitting any evil. But if the immortal God the Word seems to Celsus to be altered and transformed by taking on a mortal body and a human soul, let him learn that "the Word," remaining the Word in his essence, suffers none of the things that the body or the soul suffers, but sometimes condescends to the one who cannot see

the flashing brilliance of his divinity, and becomes, so to speak, "flesh," being spoken of in bodily terms, until the one who has received him in this form, being gradually lifted up by the Word, becomes able to behold his primary form as well, if I may call it that. For there are, as it were, different forms of the Word, in that the Word appears to each of those being led toward knowledge in a way proportioned to the condition of the one being introduced, whether making little

progress, or more, or already drawing near to virtue, or already established in virtue. Hence it is not, as Celsus and those like him wish, that our God "was transformed" and, going up "into the high mountain," showed another form of himself, and one far better than what was seen by those left below, unable to accompany him to that height.

for those below did not have eyes able to see the transformation of the Word into something glorious and more divine; but they could scarcely accommodate even so much of him that it could be said of him by those unable to see what is higher in him: "we saw him, yet he possessed neither form nor beauty, but his appearance was dishonored, diminished beyond the

sons of men." Let this much be said in response to Celsus's assumption, since he failed to grasp the changes or transformations that Jesus underwent, as these are recorded in the narratives, and the question of his mortality or immortality. But are these things not far more dignified — especially when understood in the way one ought — than the story of Dionysus being deceived by the Titans and falling from the throne of Zeus and

being torn apart by them, and afterward being put back together again and, as it were, coming back to life and ascending into heaven? Or is it permitted to the Greeks to refer such things to an account concerning the soul and to read them in a figurative sense, while for us the door of a coherent narrative is shut — one that everywhere agrees and harmonizes in the scriptures that come from the divine spirit, which came to be among pure souls? Celsus, then, has by no means

seen the intention of our writings; and so he slanders his own interpretation, not that of the scriptures. But if he had considered what follows for a soul that is to exist in eternal life, and what one ought to think concerning its essence and its first principles, he would not have so mocked the immortal coming into a mortal body — not according to Plato's transmigration of souls,

but according to some other, loftier understanding. He would have seen, too, a single, extraordinary descent, out of great love for humanity, undertaken in order to turn back what the divine scripture has named mystically "the perished sheep of the house of Israel," and to come down from the mountains to which, according to certain parables, the shepherd is described as descending, having left behind on those heights the sheep that had not strayed. But Celsus, dwelling further on this,

In these things, which he has not understood, he becomes for us a source of repetition, though it is not our wish to leave anything he has said, even seemingly, unexamined. He says next that either God truly changes, as these people claim, into a mortal body — and it has already been said that this is impossible — or he himself does not change, but makes those who see him think he has, and so misleads and lies; and deceit

and falsehood are otherwise evils, and one might use them only as one uses a kind of drug — either toward friends who are sick or mad, in order to heal them, or toward enemies, in order to escape some danger. But no one sick or mad counts as God's friend, and God fears no one such that he would need to deceive in order to escape danger. To this it might be said, on the one hand, concerning the nature of the divine

Word, which is God, and on the other, concerning the soul of Jesus. Concerning the nature of the Word, then: just as the quality of foods changes into milk for the nature of the infant within the one who nurses it, or is prepared by the physician for what is useful to the health of the one who is ill, or is made ready in this way for the stronger person as being more capable — so too

God changes the power of the Word, whose nature it is to nourish, for the human soul, adapting it to each person according to worth: for one it becomes, as scripture named it, "rational milk without guile"; for another, as being weaker, it is so to speak a vegetable; and to one who is mature, "solid food" is given over. And the Word does not in any way falsify its own nature by becoming nourishing to each, in whatever measure each is able to receive it,

and it neither deceives nor lies. But if someone takes the change to refer to the soul of Jesus, in its coming into a body, we shall ask how he means "change." For if he means a change of essence, this is not granted, not only in her case, but in the case of no other rational soul either; but if he means that she is affected in some way by being mingled with the body, and by the place

into which she has come, what absurdity confronts the argument, which out of great love for humankind brings a savior down for the human race? Since none of those who had previously professed to heal was able to accomplish as much as she herself displayed through the things she did, having descended willingly into human miseries for the sake of our race. Knowing these things, the divine Word says much of this, in many places, in the scriptures. It is enough

for the present to cite one saying of Paul, which runs thus: "Let this be your disposition among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking on a servant's form," "and, discovered in outward fashion as a man, he lowered himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also

highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name." Let others, then, grant to Celsus that he does not change, but makes those who see him think that he has changed; but we, believing that it is not appearance but truth and reality in the coming of Jesus among men, are not subject to Celsus's accusation. Nevertheless we shall answer that you do not say, Celsus,

...as it is sometimes granted, in the manner of a medicine, to make use of deceiving and lying? What, then, is strange about this, if something of this kind was destined to save, that something of this kind should have occurred? For indeed some accounts, told rather in terms of falsehood, turn people's characters around, just as the words physicians sometimes speak to the sick do — rather than words spoken according to truth. But let this be our defense concerning...

...other matters. For indeed it is not strange that the one who heals sick friends should heal the human race, which is dear to him, by such means as one would not employ as a first resort but only under the pressure of circumstance. And the human race, being deranged, needed to be treated by the methods that the Word saw were useful for the deranged, so that they might come to their senses. He says that such things...

...someone does against enemies, taking precautions to escape danger. But God fears no one, so as to deceive those plotting against him in order to escape danger. It is altogether excessive and unreasonable to offer a defense against something said by no one concerning our Savior. It has already been stated, in our defense concerning other matters, in answer to the claim that no one who is sick or deranged is a friend of God; for he who...

...offered the defense says that this dispensation comes about not on behalf of those already friends who are sick or deranged, but on behalf of those who, because of the disease of the soul and the derangement of natural reason, are still enemies, so that they may become friends of God. For indeed it is clearly said that Jesus took upon himself everything on behalf of sinners, in order to "free" them from sin and make them "righteous." Then, since he puts words into the mouths of...

...Jews separately, giving reasons for the coming advent of Christ as they understand it, and Christians separately, speaking of the advent of the Son of God into human life that has already occurred — come, let us examine these points too, briefly, as far as possible. The Jews, in his account, say that when life had become full of every kind of wickedness, it required the one sent down from God, so that...

...the unjust might be punished, and everything be purified, corresponding to the flood that occurred at first. And since Christians too are said to add other things to these, it is clear that he says these things too are asserted by them. And what is strange about this: that, at the overflowing of wickedness, the one who will cleanse the world and deal with each person according to his desert should come to dwell among us? For it is not in keeping with God's character to fail to halt the...

...spread of wickedness and to renew all things. The Greeks too know that the earth is purified by flood or by fire in recurring cycles, as Plato somewhere says: "And whenever the gods, cleansing the earth with waters, flood it, those on the mountains..." and so on. It must therefore be said: is it the case that, if they assert these things, they are solemn and worthy of consideration...

...as promises, but if we ourselves construct certain things praised by the Greeks, are these doctrines no longer good? And yet those who care about the coherence and precision of everything written will try to show not only the antiquity of those who wrote these things, but also the dignity of what is said and its consistency with itself. I do not know how, in a manner similar to the flood that purified...

the earth, as the account of the Jews and Christians holds, he thinks that the destruction of the tower also took place. For in order that the story about the tower recorded in Genesis might not be an allegory of any kind but, as Celsus supposes, plainly literal, it does not even appear on this reading to have happened for the purification of the earth—unless perhaps he thinks that what is called the "confusion" of

tongues is a purification of the earth. Concerning this, whoever is able will give a fuller account at a more opportune time, when it is our task to set forth both what account the history at that place might have, and also the elevated sense concerning it. But since he thinks that Moses, who recorded the events about the tower and the confusion of the languages, corrupted the stories told about the sons of Aloeus and wrote them up as this account of the tower,

it must be said that, as regards the stories of the sons of Aloeus, I do not think anyone spoke of them before Homer, whereas the account of the tower, being far older than Homer—indeed older even than the invention of Greek letters—I am persuaded Moses wrote down. Who, then, is more likely to have corrupted whose material? Is it those who tell the story of the sons of Aloeus who corrupted the account of the tower, or is it the writer of the tower and the confusion of languages who corrupted the tale of the Aloadae?

To unbiased hearers it is clear that Moses is older than Homer. And as for the events concerning Sodom and Gomorrah recorded by Moses in Genesis, namely that they were destroyed by fire because of sin, Celsus compares this to the story of Phaethon, making one mistake—that of not having taken note of

the antiquity of Moses—while otherwise proceeding consistently. For those who tell the story of Phaethon appear to be later even than Homer, who is himself much later than Moses. We do not, then, deny the purifying fire and the destruction of the world for the removal of wickedness and the renewal of the whole, saying that we have learned this from the prophets, out of the sacred books. When, however, as we have said above,

the prophets, in speaking much about the future, are shown to have spoken truly about many things now past, and thereby give proof that a divine spirit was at work in them, it is clear that we ought also to trust them concerning the future—or rather, trust the divine spirit within them. And the Christians too, according to Celsus, adding certain statements to what is said by the Jews, say that because of the sins of the Jews

the Son of God has now been sent, and that the Jews, having punished Jesus and given him gall to drink, drew down upon themselves wrath from God. Let anyone who wishes refute this statement as false, unless the whole nation of the Jews was overthrown—and that not even a full generation after they had done these things to Jesus; for forty-two years, I think,

passed from the time they crucified Jesus until the destruction of Jerusalem. And it is never recorded, from the time the Jews have existed, that they were cast out for so long a time from their solemn rites and worship, having been overcome by more powerful nations; but even if at some point they seemed to be forsaken because of sin, none the less they were watched over and, upon returning, received back their own, carrying out their customary observances unhindered. This, then, is one of the things that establish

Jesus had become something divine and holy, and that so many and such great things have already for so long a time befallen the Jews on his account. We will confidently declare that they will not even be restored, for they committed the most unholy crime of all: they plotted against the savior of the human race in the very city where they used to perform for God the customary symbols of the great mysteries. That city, then, ought

where Jesus suffered these things, to have been utterly destroyed, and the nation of the Jews to have been uprooted, and the calling of God unto blessedness to have passed to others — I mean the Christians — to whom the teaching concerning sincere and pure piety toward God has come, since they have received new laws suited to the constitution established everywhere, seeing that the laws formerly given as to a single nation,

ruled by kinsmen of like character, could not now be carried out by everyone. After this, laughing in his customary manner, he has compared the whole race of Jews and Christians to a swarm of bats, or to ants coming out from a nest, or to frogs holding session around a marsh, or to worms convening in a corner of mud and quarreling with one another over which of them are the greater sinners, and saying that God

reveals everything to us beforehand and announces it in advance, and, leaving behind the whole world along with the heavenly motion and overlooking this vast earth, he conducts his affairs with us alone and sends his heralds to us alone and never ceases sending and seeking, so that we may always be with him. And in this fiction of his he makes us like worms, saying that God exists, and then after him we,

having been made by him, are in every way like God, and that earth, water, air, and the stars have all been placed under us — everything existing for our sake and ordained to serve us. And the worms — that is, plainly, ourselves — say among themselves that now, since some among us transgress, God will arrive, or he will dispatch his son, so that he may burn up the unrighteous, and the rest of us,

together with him, may have eternal life. And to all this he adds that these things are more tolerable coming from worms and frogs than from Jews and Christians quarreling with one another. In reply to this we ask those who accept such things said against us, and we say: do you suppose that all human beings are a swarm of bats or ants or frogs or worms, because of God's transcendence? Or

do you exclude the rest of humankind from this proposed image, and on account of their rationality and their observance of established laws regard them as human beings — but Jews and Christians, because of doctrines of theirs that displease you, you disparage and have compared to these creatures? And whichever answer you give to our question, we will reply, attempting to show that it has not been rightly said, either concerning all

human beings or concerning us in particular. For suppose you say first that all human beings, in relation to God, are comparable to these lowly creatures, since their smallness is in no way commensurate with God's transcendence — what smallness, exactly? Answer me, my good fellows. For if you mean smallness of body, hear this: that what exceeds and what falls short, in relation to

is not judged by truth's tribunal on the basis of the body. For if it were, griffins and elephants would be superior to us human beings, since these are larger, stronger, and longer-lived than we are; but no one of sound mind would claim that, because of their bodies, these irrational creatures outrank rational beings (for reason lifts the rational far above every irrational thing in point of excellence). But

neither are the excellent and blessed beings—whether, as you say, the good daemons, or, as we are accustomed to name them, the angels of God, or whatever superior natures there may be, superior to human beings on account of their bodies—but because the rational element in them has been brought to perfection and has been shaped according to every virtue. But if you disparage the smallness of the human being not on account of the body but on account of the soul,

on the ground that it is inferior to the rest of rational beings, and especially to the excellent ones, and inferior for this reason, namely that vice exists in it, why then should the wicked among Christians, or those among the Jews who live badly, be any more a swarm of frogs, ants, worms, or bats, than the depraved among the rest of the nations? For according to this reasoning, anyone at all who indulges most in vice, poured out to excess,

would be a bat and a worm and a frog and an ant with respect to the rest of humankind. And so too if some Demosthenes the orator possessed a vice comparable to that man's, along with the deeds done by him out of that vice, or if some other reputed orator, an Antiphon, likewise did away with providence in a work entitled "On Truth"—similar to Celsus's own title—these people would be no less

worms, wallowing in a corner of the mire of ignorance and unlearning. And yet what sort of rational being could reasonably be compared to a worm at all, since it possesses the resources for virtue? For these very sketches and outlines directed toward virtue do not permit those who possess virtue in potentiality, and who cannot utterly destroy its seeds, to be compared to a worm. It is therefore evident that neither are human beings

worms in any absolute sense in relation to God; for reason, having its origin from the Word that comes from God, does not allow the rational animal to be considered utterly alien to God—nor, all the more, are the wicked among Christians and Jews such, nor, in point of truth, are Christians or Jews, any more than the rest of the wicked, to be compared to worms wallowing in a corner of the mire. But if

the nature of reason does not permit even this to be granted, clearly we shall not insult human nature, which has been constituted for virtue, even if through ignorance it goes astray, nor shall we liken it to such creatures as these. But if it is on account of doctrines of Christians and Jews that do not please Celsus—doctrines which he plainly does not even understand from the outset—that these people are worms and ants while the rest are not, come,

let us also examine those doctrines of Christians and Jews that are self-evidently apparent to everyone, as compared with the doctrines of the rest of humankind, to see whether it will not become clear to those who once admit that certain human beings are worms and ants, that it is rather worms and ants and frogs—those who have fallen away from the sound conception of God and, under the illusion of reverence, give worship to irrational animals, to images, or even to the works of craftsmen, though they ought

from their beauty to marvel at the one who made them and to revere him as well—men, and whatever is more valuable than men, those who have been able, by following reason, to ascend from stones and wood, but also from what is reckoned the most valuable matter, silver and gold. And having ascended also from the beautiful things in the cosmos to the one who made the whole, and having entrusted themselves to him, and as

to him alone, who is able to sustain all things that exist, and to watch over the reasonings of every being, and to hear each one's prayer as they offer it, sending up their prayers to him, and doing everything as before a spectator of what happens, and guarding themselves, as before a hearer of what is said, against saying anything that is reported to god in an unpleasing way. Unless, that is, such great piety, overcome neither by hardships nor by

the danger of death nor by plausible arguments, does nothing to help those who have taken it up, so that they are no longer to be compared to worms, even though they were so compared before attaining such great piety; but as for those who conquer the sharpest craving for sexual pleasure—which has made the spirits of many soft and waxen—and who conquer it for this reason, since they have been persuaded that they cannot be made akin to god in any other way, unless

they also ascend to him through self-control, do they seem to us to be brothers of worms and kin of ants and much like frogs? And what of the brilliance of justice, which preserves toward one's neighbor and kin what is communal and just and humane and kind—does it accomplish nothing toward such a person's not being a bat? But those who wallow about in licentiousness, such as the

majority of people are, and those who go to prostitutes without discrimination, teaching moreover that this need not happen altogether contrary to what is fitting—are they not worms in filth? Especially when set beside those instructed not to remove "the members of Christ," the body the Word makes its home, and turn them instead into "the members of a prostitute," and who have already learned, moreover, that the

body of the rational being, devoted also to the god of the universe, "is a temple" of the god they worship, becoming such from a pure conception concerning the Maker—who, guarding themselves against defiling "the temple of god" through unlawful intercourse, practice self-control as piety toward god. And I am not yet speaking of the other evils found among men, from which not even those who seem to

philosophize are quickly free (for many are counterfeit even in philosophy), nor am I yet saying that many such things exist among those belonging to neither the Jewish nor the Christian fold; rather, either they do not exist at all among Christians, if you examine strictly who the Christian is, or if such a person should even be found, certainly not among those who assemble together and come to the common prayers and

are not excluded from them—unless indeed some such person, rarely escaping notice, should be found among the many. Are we, then, worms—we who gather as a church standing against the Jews on the basis of the sacred writings believed by them, and showing both that the one foretold has already come to dwell among us and that they, because of their greatest sins, have been abandoned, while we, who have accepted the word, have hopes with god?

the best of these come from faith in him and from the life that can make us his own, pure from all wickedness and evil of life. It is not simply the case, then, that if someone proclaims himself a Jew or a Christian, he is thereby saying that God has made the whole world and the heavenly motion especially for us. Rather, if someone, as Jesus taught, is pure

"in heart," and gentle and a peacemaker, and eagerly endures the dangers that come for piety's sake, such a person could reasonably take courage in God, and, understanding also the word in the prophecies, could say this too: God has foretold and announced all these things to us who believe. But since Celsus has made those he regards as worms — namely, Christians — say that the heavenly motion,

leaving God behind, and overlooking so vast an earth, exists as a state only for us, and sends messages to us, and does not cease sending and seeking, so that we may always be with him — it must be said that he attributes to us things we do not say, to us who both read and recognize that God cherishes everything that exists and abhors nothing he has made; for it would not be like him, hating

anything he hated. We have also read this: "You spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord, lover of souls. For your imperishable spirit is in all things; therefore you correct little by little those who fall away, and in the things in which they sin you admonish them, reminding them." How, then, can we say that God has abandoned the heavenly motion and the whole world, and overlooked so vast an earth, to dwell as a state only among us?

We are the ones who have found it necessary in our prayers to affirm, with right conviction, that "the mercy of the Lord fills the whole earth," and "his mercy extends to all flesh," and that God, being good, "makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust," and urges and teaches us, that we may become his sons, to extend our

good deeds to all people as far as we are able — for he himself is called "the Savior of all people, especially of the faithful," and his Christ is said to be "a propitiation for our sins, not for our sins alone but for the whole world's sins." And perhaps these are not the things Celsus recorded, but certain other, more ordinary things

that some Jews might say, but not Christians at all, who have been taught that "God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And yet "scarcely will anyone die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone might even dare to die." But now, for sinners everywhere,

so that they might abandon sin and entrust themselves to God, Jesus has been proclaimed to have come among us, being called, by a certain ancestral usage of these terms, also the Christ of God. But perhaps Celsus has misheard some things, that God is one thing, and then after him we, whom he called worms, are another. And he does the same as those who charge an entire school of philosophy with wrongdoing on account of certain things said by a rash youth, of three days'

having attended the school of some philosopher and being puffed up against the rest as inferior and unphilosophical. For we know that there are many things more honorable than a human being; we have also read that "God took his stand in the assembly of gods" — gods not identical to those the rest worship ("since every god of the nations is but a demon") — and we have read that "God," having taken his stand "in the assembly of gods, judges in the midst of the gods"

— he judges. But we also know that "even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him." And we also know that the angels are

greater than human beings, in such a way that human beings, once perfected, become equal to angels; for "in the resurrection of the dead there is neither marrying nor being given in marriage, but the righteous are like the angels in heaven" and become "equal to angels." And we know that in the ordering of the universe there are beings called thrones, others called dominions, others called powers, and others called rulers. And we see that

we human beings, falling far short of these, have hopes that by living well and doing everything according to reason we may ascend to a likeness of all of them. And finally, since "what we shall be has not yet been disclosed, we know that once it is disclosed, we will resemble God and behold him just as he truly is." But if someone should say, whether repeating what is understood by those who grasp it or

by those who do not comprehend but have misheard a sound teaching, that it is God, and then after him us — I would explain this too: saying "we" in place of "the rational beings," and still more the excellent among the rational beings; for according to us the virtue of all the blessed is the same, so that the virtue of man and the virtue of God are the same. For this reason we are taught to become "perfect,

as your Father in heaven is perfect." No one who is noble and good is therefore a worm swimming in mud, and no one pious is an ant, and no one just is a frog, and no one whose soul is illumined by the bright light of truth could reasonably be compared to a bat. It seems to me that Celsus has also misheard the saying "let us make man according to our image and likeness"

and on the strength of this has invented worms who say that, having come to be by God, we are in every way like him. Yet if he had known the difference between man's having come to be "according to the image" of God and "according to the likeness" — and that it is recorded that God said, "let us make man according to our image and likeness," but that God made man "according to the image" of God, and not

yet "according to the likeness" as well — he would not have made us say that we are in every way like God. Nor do we say that even the stars have been placed beneath us. Since the resurrection of the righteous, as it is called and as understood by the wise, is compared to sun and moon and stars by the one who says: "one glory has the sun, and another glory the moon, and another glory the stars;"

"For one star differs from another star in splendor; such, too, is the resurrection of the dead," a matter Daniel had prophesied about long before. He says that we claim all things have been ordained to serve us — perhaps not having heard the intelligent among us saying such things, or perhaps not knowing how it has been said that the greatest among us is slave of all. And if

the Greeks say, "the sun and the night serve mortals," they praise the saying and expound it; but when such a thing is either not said by us, or said differently, Celsus slanders us on these grounds too. Yet it was we ourselves who said, in Celsus's own presence — we, the "worms" as he terms us — that because some among us go wrong, God will draw near to us, or will dispatch

his own Son, to burn up the unjust, while the rest of us "frogs," together with him, may have eternal life. And see how, like a buffoon, this solemn philosopher has turned the divine proclamation of judgment — the punishment "against the unjust" and the reward for the righteous — into mockery, laughter, and derision. And to all this he adds that these things

are more tolerable when spoken by worms and frogs than when reported by Jews and Christians disputing with one another. But we, at least, will not imitate him, nor will we say anything of the kind about those philosophers who claim to understand the universe's nature and who argue among themselves about how the whole came to be, and how heaven and earth and everything

in them came to be, and how souls — whether unbegotten and not created by God, yet ordered by him and exchanging bodies, or sown together with bodies and either persisting or not persisting. For one could, instead of speaking solemnly and approving the resolve of persons who gave themselves over to inquiring after truth, mock and revile them, saying that they are worms —

these people, not taking their own measure amid the mud in the corner of human life, and for that reason pronouncing on such great matters as though they had grasped them; and that they speak, insisting as though they had beheld things which cannot be beheld without a higher inspiration and a more divine power. "For no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is within

him; so too no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God." But we are not so mad as to compare so great an understanding of men — I use the word "understanding" quite generally — occupied not with the affairs of the many but with searching out truth, to the squirmings of worms or anything else of that sort; rather, we testify truthfully concerning certain Greek philosophers that they came to know

God, since "God revealed it to them," even though they did not "glorify him as God or give thanks, but were made futile in their reasonings," and "claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and reptiles." After this, wishing to establish that none of the beings mentioned above differ at all

He says that Jews and Christians alike are runaways from Egypt, who never accomplished anything of note and never amounted to anything either in reputation or in number. Now, that they were not runaways, and that they were not Egyptians but Hebrews who had sojourned in Egypt, we have already stated above. But if he thinks he can establish that they never amounted to anything in reputation or in

number from the fact that their history is not found to any great extent among the Greeks, we will reply that if one fixes one's gaze on their constitution from the beginning and on the arrangement of their laws, one would find that they were people who displayed on earth a shadow of the heavenly life; among whom nothing else was reckoned to be God except the God who is over all, and none

of the makers of images took part in their political life. For neither painter nor sculptor of images had any place in their constitution, since the law banished all such people from it, so that no excuse might remain for fashioning images, which draws the foolish among men and drags the eyes of the soul down from God to the earth. There was accordingly a law among them of this kind: "You shall not act lawlessly

and make for yourselves a carved likeness—any image, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies beneath the heaven, the likeness of any creeping thing that creeps on the earth, the likeness of any fish, of whatever is in the waters beneath the earth." And the law wished them,

in dealing with the truth of each thing, not to fashion other things contrary to the truth, falsifying what is truly male or truly female, or the nature of beasts, the class of birds, the kind of creeping things, or that of fish. And this too was held solemn and noble among them: "do not look up to heaven and behold sun, moon, and the array of stars,

the whole array of heaven, and go astray and bow down to them and serve them." And what a constitution it was for an entire nation, among whom it was not even possible for an effeminate man to appear! It is also remarkable that the kindling-fuel for the young—courtesans—was removed from their political life. And there were also courts made up of the most just men, men who had given proof of a sound life over a long period of time, and whose

judgments were trusted; because of their pure character and their being above the ordinary human level, these men were called gods, according to a certain ancestral custom of the Jews. And one could see an entire nation practicing philosophy, and because of the leisure devoted to hearing the divine laws, the so-called Sabbaths, and the rest of their observances concerning priests and sacrifices, which contain countless symbols made clear to those who love learning. But since nothing is stable in

human nature, that constitution too was bound, as it gradually decayed, to fall out of use. Providence, however, having fittingly transformed the solemn dignity of their message to suit the needs of people everywhere requiring transformation, has handed down in its place, to those who believe from among people everywhere, the solemn worship of God according to Jesus—who possessed not just discernment but a share in the divine as well, and who cast down the

...concerning demons on earth, who delight in frankincense and blood and the fumes rising from the burnt fat, and who drag men down like the fabled Titans or Giants, away from the conception of God — he himself, giving no thought to their plotting, though they plot especially against the better sort, established laws by which those who live according to them will be blessed, in no way flattering the demons through sacrifices, and...

...utterly despising them because of the Word of God who helps those who look upward and toward God. And since God willed that the word concerning Jesus should prevail among men, the demons have been able to do nothing. And yet they have left no stone unturned, so that Christians might cease to exist; for they stirred up against the Word and against those who believe in it both the emperors and the senate and the rulers everywhere, but also...

...the peoples themselves — who, not perceiving the irrational and wicked activity of the demons, were thrown into turmoil against the Word and against those who believe in it. But the Word of God, more powerful than all things, even when hindered, took the hindrance as food, as it were, for its own growth, and advancing, won over more souls; for this is what God willed. These things have been said by us, even if in a digression. But...

...necessarily so, I think. For we wished to respond to what Celsus said about the Jews, namely that they had fled Egypt as runaways, and that these individuals, despite being dear to God, achieved nothing worth recording. But we also wished to answer the charge that they have amounted to nothing either in reputation or in number, saying that, as a "chosen race" and a "royal priesthood," withdrawing and avoiding intermixture with the many,...

...so that their character would not be corrupted, they were guarded by the divine power — neither desiring, as most men do, to add other kingdoms to their own, nor being left without protection, so that through their smallness of number they might become an easy target for plots and, so far as their smallness went, be utterly destroyed. And this held true for as long as they remained worthy of guardianship from God; but when it was necessary for them, as a whole...

...sinning nation, to turn back to their God through hardships, they were abandoned now to a greater, now to a lesser degree, until, under the Romans, having committed the greatest sin of all in killing Jesus, they were abandoned completely. Next, after this, Celsus, running quickly through what stands in Moses' first book, the one entitled Genesis, says that they undertook to trace their lineage from the first...

...seed of sorcerers and deceivers, calling as witnesses faint and ambiguous voices hidden away somewhere in the dark, and interpreting them to the unlearned and the foolish — and this though the matter had never, in all the long time before, even been disputed. It seems to me that in these words he has expressed rather obscurely what he wished to say. It is likely, too, that he deliberately cultivated obscurity on this point, since he saw...

...that the argument establishing that the Jewish nation descends from such ancestors was a strong one; and yet again he wished not to appear ignorant of a matter concerning the Jews and their race that is not to be dismissed lightly. It is clear, then, that the Jews too trace their lineage from the three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — whose names, joined to that of God,...

the designation, so that it is used, in prayers to God and in incantations against demons, not only by those of that nation but by almost everyone who practices spells and magic — 'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.' For this invocation of God is found in many places in the magical writings,

along with the adoption of God's name as though it were proper to these men for use against demons. This, then — though Jews and Christians bring it forward to prove that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, forefathers of the Jewish people, were holy men indeed — seems to me something Celsus was not wholly ignorant of, even if he failed to state it plainly,

since he was unable to answer the argument. For we ask all who employ such invocations of God: tell us, sirs, who was Abraham, and how great was Isaac, and of what power did Jacob become, that the designation 'God' fitted to their name should produce such great effects? And from whom have you learned, or from whom can you learn, the facts about these

men? And who indeed took the trouble to write down the history concerning them — whether one that of itself exalts these men in secret terms, or one that through hidden meanings hints at certain great and wondrous things to those able to perceive them? Then, when we ask and no one can produce it, from whatever history it might be — whether Greek or barbarian, or not a history at all but some mystical

record — concerning these men, we for our part will produce the writing titled Genesis, containing the deeds of these men and God's oracles to them, and we will say that surely the fact that even you make use of the names of these three patriarchs of the nation — grasping by plain experience that not inconsiderable effects are accomplished through invoking them — this itself demonstrates the divine character

of these men, whom we take from nowhere else than the sacred books among the Jews. Indeed, he who is called the God of Israel, the God of the Hebrews, and the one who submerged the Egyptian king together with the Egyptians in the Red Sea, is frequently named and employed against demons or certain evil powers. And we learn the history concerning these named ones

and the interpretation of the names from the Hebrews, who in their ancestral script and ancestral language extol and recount these things. How then did the Jews, in undertaking to trace their own lineage from the very seed of these men whom Celsus has supposed to be sorcerers and wandering deceivers, shamelessly attempt to derive themselves and their origin from these men, whose names, being Hebrew, testify

to the Hebrews, whose sacred books they have in the Hebrew language and script? Is this nation, then, akin to these men? Indeed, to this very day the Jewish names, adhering to the Hebrew language, were taken either from their writings or, quite simply, from the meanings signified by the Hebrew tongue. And let the reader of Celsus's work observe

Unless this is what he is hinting at: that they also attempted to trace their genealogy back to some original sowing of sorcerers and deceivers, calling as witnesses faint and ambiguous voices hidden away somewhere in the dark. For these names are hidden and not out in the light and knowledge of the many. To us, at any rate, they are not ambiguous, even when they are taken up by people foreign to our religion; but according to Celsus, not...

...establishing the ambiguity of the voices, I do not know how he has thrown this in carelessly. And yet he ought, if he wished fairly to overturn the genealogy which he thought was most shamelessly adopted by the Jews, who boast of Abraham and his descendants, to have set out the whole matter, first arguing for it with whatever plausibility he judged it to have, and only after that nobly overturning, by the truth as it appeared to him and by the oracles concerning it...

...the facts of the matter. But neither Celsus nor anyone else will be able, in discussing the nature of names taken up as powers, to set forth an accurate account of these things and to prove that the people to whom they belong have become contemptible—people whose very names have power not only among their own but also among those outside. He ought to have set out how it is that we...

...deceive our hearers, as he supposes, by misinterpreting to the ignorant and unthinking the truth about these names, while he himself, who boasts of being neither ignorant nor unthinking, gives the true interpretation of them. But in dealing with these names, from which the Jews trace their genealogy, he has thrown out, in passing, the claim that there has never at any time in the past been any dispute about such...

...names, but that now the Jews are disputing about them with certain others whom he did not name. Let whoever wishes point out who these claimants are, and whether they even have any plausibility, arguing against the Jews in order to demonstrate that Jews and Christians fail to give a sound account of these matters, of the people to whom the names belong, but that there are others who have grasped the wisest and truest account of them.

But we are convinced that no one will be able to do any such thing, since it is plain that the names derive from the Hebrew tongue, a language found nowhere except among the Jews. After this, Celsus, setting out the accounts from history outside the divine word concerning the peoples who have laid claim to antiquity—the Athenians, for example, and the Egyptians and the Arcadians and the Phrygians—who say that certain of them were earthborn, and who each offer proofs of this,

says that the Jews, huddled together in some corner of Palestine, utterly uneducated and never having heard before these things long since sung by Hesiod and countless other inspired men, composed a most implausible and tasteless tale: a man molded and breathed into by the hands of a god, and a little woman from his rib, and commands of the god, and

a serpent that opposed these commands and got the better of the god's orders—telling this myth as if to old women, and making the god act most impiously, weak from the very beginning and unable to persuade even the one man he himself had molded. By these arguments, then, the man of much learning and much erudition, Celsus, who charges both Jews and Christians with ignorance and lack of education, clearly shows just how accurately he knew...

the times of each writer, Greek and barbarian—he who imagines that Hesiod and a host of others, men he terms divinely inspired, precede Moses and his writings in time; Moses, who is demonstrated to be much older than the events at Troy. It was not the Jews, then, who composed the most implausible and most tasteless things about the earth-born man, but the men whom Celsus calls inspired, Hesiod and his own countless others,

who neither learned nor heard the far older and most venerable accounts current in Palestine, wrote such histories about ancient matters as theogonies as well, attributing to the gods, so far as lay in their power, an origin, and countless other things besides. It is with good reason, then, that Plato expels from his own republic, as ruining the young, Homer and those who write such poems. But Plato clearly

did not think that the men who left behind such poems had become inspired; whereas the man more capable of judging than Plato, Celsus the Epicurean—if indeed this is the same man who also composed the other two books against the Christians—perhaps, in his rivalry with us, called men inspired whom he did not himself think inspired, applying to them the term "inspired." He charges us with introducing a man molded by the hands of God, whereas the book of Genesis

has taken up "hands" of God neither for the making of man nor for his molding. But since Job and David say, "your hands made me and molded me," concerning which "much" is "the account" needed to set forth what was intended by those who said these things—not only about the difference between making and molding, but also about the hands of God—which

those who have not understood such expressions drawn from the divine scriptures suppose that we attribute to the God over all a form of the sort the human body has, on which reasoning it would follow that we also think there are wings on the body of God, since the scriptures concerning our God also say these things, taken according to the letter. But to explain these matters now is not

required by the task before us; for we have already, so far as was possible, examined them in the first place in our commentaries on Genesis. Now observe Celsus' malice in what follows. For when our scripture says, of the fashioning of man, "he blew into his countenance a breath of life, so that man came to be a living soul," Celsus, in his malicious wish to mock

the phrase "he blew into his countenance a breath of life"—which he has not even understood, as to how it is meant—wrote that they composed a man molded by the hands of God and inflated, so that anyone who supposed "inflated" to be spoken in a manner similar to inflated wineskins might laugh at "he blew into his countenance a breath of life" as spoken figuratively and in need of explanation—an explanation showing that God imparted to man a portion of his incorruptible

spirit; in accordance with which it is said, "your incorruptible spirit is in all things." Then, since his aim was to defame what is written, he also mocked the statement: "God brought a trance down upon Adam, so that he fell asleep; then he took one of his ribs, replacing it with flesh, and from the rib taken out of Adam he fashioned a woman."

and so on, without even setting out the wording that could alert the hearer that it was spoken by way of figurative interpretation. And he was not willing to grant that such things are told allegorically—although further on he says that the more reasonable among both Jews and Christians, ashamed of these passages, attempt somehow to allegorize them. One might say to him: is it, then, that what is said by your inspired Hesiod

in the form of a myth about the woman is to be taken allegorically—namely that this "evil" was given to men by Zeus "in exchange for fire"—while the woman taken from the rib of the one who slept after the "ecstasy," and built up by God, seems to you to have been spoken without any figure and without any concealment at all? But it is not reasonable to refuse to laugh at the one as a myth

and instead to marvel at it as philosophy expressed in the form of a myth, while at the other, fixing one's understanding on the bare wording alone, one sneers and supposes it will be of no account. For if it is on the basis of the bare wording that one must accuse things spoken with hidden meanings, see whether it is not rather Hesiod's words that will incur ridicule—words written, as you say, by an inspired man: "But cloud-gathering Zeus, angered, addressed him: 'Son of Iapetus, knowing counsel beyond all,

you rejoice at having stolen fire and outwitted my mind—a great affliction to yourself and to men still to come. To them I will give, in exchange for fire, an evil in which they will all delight in their hearts, embracing their own misfortune.' So he spoke, and the father of men and gods laughed aloud, and he commanded famed Hephaestus with all speed to mix earth with water, and

to put into it human voice and strength, and to make it resemble in face the immortal goddesses, the fair, lovely form of a maiden; and Athena to teach her crafts, to weave the intricate loom; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace about her head, and painful longing, and cares that consume the limbs; and to put into her a doglike mind and a thievish character (he bade Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argus, do this). So he spoke, and they obeyed lord Zeus, son of Cronus.

At once the famed Lame God molded out of earth something resembling a modest maiden, by the counsels of the son of Cronus; and the grey-eyed goddess Athena girded and adorned her; and around her the goddesses, the Graces, and queenly Persuasion placed golden necklaces upon her skin; and around her the lovely-haired Seasons crowned her with spring flowers; and Pallas Athena fitted every adornment to her skin; and within her breast the guide, the slayer of Argus,

fashioned lies and wily words and a thievish character, by the will of deep-thundering Zeus; and the herald of the gods put a voice within her, and named this woman Pandora, because all who have their homes on Olympus gave her a gift—a calamity for men who live by bread. And ridiculous in itself, too, is what is said about the jar: that before this, the tribes of men lived upon the earth apart

from evils and apart from grievous toil and from painful diseases, which give death to men. But the woman, removing with her hands the great lid of the jar, scattered its contents, and devised grievous sorrows for mankind. Only Hope remained there within, in her unbreakable dwelling, under the rim of the jar, and did not fly out the door; for before that could happen, the lid of the jar closed it in. Against this man, then, who allegorizes these things so solemnly—whether he does so rightly

whether by allegory or not, we will say: is it only to the Greeks that it is permitted to philosophize by way of hidden meaning, and also to the Egyptians, and to as many of the barbarians as pride themselves on their mysteries and their truth—while only the Jews, in your view, and their lawgiver and their writers, seemed to be the most foolish of all men, and this nation alone has partaken of no power of God? That a people so magnificently taught should

ascend to the uncreated nature of God and look to him alone, and expect its hopes from him alone? But since Celsus also makes a mockery of the account concerning the serpent as one who works against God's commands to man, supposing the story to be some myth similar to those handed down to old wives, and deliberately named neither God's "paradise" nor

the fact that it is said that "God" planted it "toward the east, in Eden," and thereafter made "every tree that is pleasant to look upon and good to eat" spring up "from the ground, along with the tree of life set in the midst of the garden, and the tree bearing knowledge of good and of evil," together with what is said following these—matters capable by themselves of stirring a reader who comes to them with goodwill, since all these things

are interpreted tropologically in no unworthy manner. Come, let us set alongside them, from Plato's Symposium, what is said about Love, put into the mouth of Socrates, and how it is set forth more solemnly than everything said about him by all the other speakers in the Symposium, and attributed to Socrates. Plato's text runs thus: "At Aphrodite's birth, the gods gathered for a banquet, Poros son of Metis among them. And when the meal was finished,"

"Penia came to beg, as was natural when there was a banquet, and she was about the doors. Now Poros, having gotten drunk on nectar—for wine did not yet exist—went into the garden of Zeus and, weighed down, fell asleep. So Penia, plotting because of her own lack of resources to have a child by Poros, lay down beside him and conceived Love. For this reason too"

"Love became a follower and attendant of Aphrodite, having been born at her birthday feast, and at the same time being by nature a lover of the beautiful, since Aphrodite too is beautiful. Being then the son of Poros and Penia, Love finds himself in such a condition as this. First, poverty is his constant state, and he is nowhere near tender and beautiful, as most people imagine, but instead"

"he is rough and squalid and unshod and homeless, always lying on the ground without a bed, sleeping in the open at doorways and along roads, having his mother's nature, always dwelling together with need. But in turn, after his father, he schemes against what is beautiful and good, being courageous and impetuous and intense, a formidable hunter, always weaving contrivances, a lover of practical wisdom and resourceful,"

"philosophizing throughout the whole of his life, a formidable sorcerer and drug-mixer and sophist. And he is by nature neither immortal nor mortal, but on the same day he now flourishes and lives, whenever he has resources, and now he dies, and again comes back to life on account of his father's nature. And what is procured for him always flows away, so that Love is never without resources nor ever rich. Of wisdom"

...and again is in the midst of ignorance." For will those who come upon these things, if they imitate Celsus's malice — which be far from Christians — laugh the myth to scorn and hold so great a man as Plato up to mockery? But if, examining philosophically what is said in the form of a myth, they are able to discover Plato's intention . . . , in what way he was able to

hide, for the sake of the many, the doctrines that seemed great to him, in the guise of a myth, while saying that those who understood ought to discover from myths the intention, concerning the truth, of the one who composed them. I set out this myth found in Plato on account of "the garden of Zeus" in him, which seems to have something similar to the paradise of God, and Poverty,

who is compared there to the serpent, and Resource, who is plotted against by Poverty, to the man plotted against by the serpent. It is not at all clear, however, whether Plato happened upon these things by coincidence, or whether, as some suppose, having encountered on his journey to Egypt those who philosophize according to the ways of the Jews, and having learned certain things from them, he preserved some and altered others,

taking care not to offend the Greeks by preserving the wisdom of the Jews in every respect, since it was disparaged by the many on account of the strangeness of its laws and the peculiar constitution they had. But this was not the moment to recount either Plato's myth or the narrative touching the serpent, God's paradise, and everything set down there as having taken place; for we have already discussed these matters at length, to the extent we were able, in

the commentaries on Genesis, where such matters are our proper business. And when he says that Moses' account most impiously introduced God as weak from the very beginning and unable to win over so much as one human being of his own making, we shall say in reply to this that what is said is like the case of someone who charged God with the origin of vice,

a thing God has proven powerless to avert in even one human being, such that not a single man since the beginning could be found free of vice's touch. For just as those who are concerned to make a defense concerning providence on this point make their defense with no small or contemptible arguments, so too those who have understood that Adam, in the Greek tongue, means

"man," will philosophize concerning Adam and his sin, and in what appears to be said about Adam, Moses is giving a physical account of human nature. For "in Adam," as scripture states, "all die," and condemnation came upon them "after the pattern of Adam's trespass" — the divine word speaking thus not so much of one particular man as of the whole race. For indeed in

the sequence of what is said as though about one person, the curse of Adam is common to all; and there is no woman of whom what is said against the woman is not said. And the man cast out of paradise along with the woman, clothed in "garments of skin," which God made for the sinners on account of the transgression of human beings, has a certain hidden and mystical

it makes some sense, beyond Plato's account of the soul's descent, shedding its wings and being carried down here, "until it takes hold of something solid." Next he says something like this: then some flood and a strange ark, holding everything within it, with a dove and a crow serving as messengers, twisting and tampering with the Deucalion story. For I do not suppose they expected these tales to be exposed to scrutiny, but told them simply as stories for little children,

they made them into myths. And in this, observe the unphilosophical hostility of the man toward the most ancient writing of the Jews. For since he was unable to find fault with the account of the flood, nor had he examined what he might have been able to say against the ark and its measurements, and how it was impossible, taken in the sense most people take it, that the ark, which was said to be "three hundred" cubits in length,

"and fifty" cubits in width, "and thirty" in height, could have held all the land animals—clean animals in groups of fourteen, unclean in groups of four—he simply called it outlandish, containing everything inside. For what is outlandish about it, when it is recorded as having been made over a hundred years and assembled with a length of "three hundred" cubits and a width of "fifty,"

until the thirty cubits of height come down to a single cubit of length and width? And how would it not have been far more astonishing for the construction to be described, in terms of its capacity, as resembling a vast city—its length at the base being ninety thousand units and its width two thousand five hundred? And how could one not marvel at the design, that it was made

sturdy enough and able to withstand a storm capable of producing a flood? For indeed it was coated firmly not with pitch nor any other such material, but with bitumen. And how is it not astonishing that living sparks of every kind were brought in inside it, by the providence of God, so that the earth might again have the seeds of every animal, God having made use of a most righteous man, who was to become the father of those after the flood? Celsus threw out

the matter concerning the dove, so as to appear to have read the book of Genesis, though he was unable to say anything to demonstrate that the account of the dove is fictitious. Then, as is his habit, translating what is written into something more ridiculous, he has changed "the raven" into a crow, and thinks that Moses wrote these things, playing tricks with the story of Deucalion current among the Greeks—unless indeed he does not even think

the writing is Moses's, but that of several people. For that is what "falsifying and playing tricks with the story of Deucalion" indicates, and also this: "for I do not think they expected these things to come to light." But how is it that those who gave writings to an entire nation did not expect them to come to light—they who even prophesied that this worship of God would be proclaimed to all the nations? And Jesus, saying to the Jews, "the kingdom of God will be taken

away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits"—what else was he arranging than to bring forward, himself by divine power, into the light the whole Jewish scripture, which contains the mysteries of the kingdom of God? Then, if they read the Greeks' accounts of the birth of the gods along with the twelve gods' legends, they treat them reverently with allegories, but if they read the

want to disparage our writings, they say outright that these things were made up as myths for little children. He calls the begetting of children absurd in the extreme and out of season—though he does not name names, it is plain he means Abraham and Sarah. And when he flings out the plots of brothers against one another, he means either Cain plotting against Abel, or, besides him, Esau against Jacob; and a father's grief—perhaps

Isaac's, over Jacob's journey abroad, or perhaps Jacob's, over Joseph being sold into Egypt. And by recording the schemings of mothers, I think he means to point to Rebecca, who arranged that Isaac's blessings should fall not on Esau but on Jacob. Now if we say that God is a close associate in all these affairs, what absurdity

are we committing in believing that his own divinity never departs from those devoted to him who live nobly and with strength of purpose? He also mocked Jacob's acquiring of property while with Laban, not understanding what the statement refers to: "And the unmarked animals belonged to Laban, but the marked ones to Jacob." And he says that God gave the sons little donkeys and little sheep and camels—

and he did not see that "all this befell them by way of a pattern, and it was set down on account of us, on whom the culmination of the ages has arrived": among whom the various characters, becoming "marked" by the word of God, conduct their lives—given as a possession to the one figuratively called Jacob. For by what is recorded concerning Laban and Jacob, those from the nations who believe in him were signified. Far indeed

is he from grasping the intent of what is written when he says that God also gave wells to the righteous. For he failed to notice that the righteous do not dig cisterns but dig "wells," seeking to find the inherent spring and source of drinkable goods, since they also take up, in a figurative sense, the commandment that says: "Drink water from your own vessels, and from the spring of your own wells. Let not

your waters overflow beyond your own spring, but let your waters pass through into your own streets. Let them belong to you alone, and let no stranger share in them with you." In many places the word made use of things that actually happened, and recorded them to represent greater matters signified beneath the surface—such as the matters concerning wells, and concerning the marriages and various unions

of the righteous, about which one will attempt to give a clearer explanation more fittingly in the commentaries devoted to those very passages. And that wells were indeed constructed in the land of the Philistines by the righteous, as is recorded in Genesis, is plain from the wells still shown at Ashkelon, which are wondrous and worthy of note on account of how strange and different their construction is compared with other wells.

As for brides and maidservants being interpreted allegorically—it is not we who teach this, but something we have received from the sages of old, one of whom said, rousing his hearer to allegorical reading: "Tell me, you who read the law, do you not listen to the law? Scripture records that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. Now the one by the slave woman"

...has been born according to the flesh, but the other, from the free woman, through the promise. These things are spoken allegorically; for these are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar"; and shortly after: "but the Jerusalem above," he says, "is free, and she is our mother." Whoever wishes to take up the letter to the Galatians will know in what way

the matters concerning the marriages and unions with the maidservants have been treated allegorically, since the argument wants us too not to emulate the bodily acts, as they are reckoned, of those who did these things, but rather those which Jesus' apostles are in the habit of calling the spiritual acts. And it was necessary that he, having accepted the truth-loving character of those who wrote down the divine scriptures — who did not conceal even the incongruous things — should have proceeded also concerning the rest

and more paradoxical matters as not having been fabricated; but he has done the opposite even in the case of Lot and his daughters, having examined it neither according to the letter nor inquired into according to its deeper sense, and called it more lawless than the evils of Thyestes. Now it is not necessary at present to speak of the tropological interpretation regarding the place — what Sodom is, and what the word of the angels was to the one being saved from there

who said, "Do not look back, nor stand anywhere in the surrounding region; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them" — and who Lot was, and who his wife was, who turned into "a pillar of salt" precisely because she looked back, and who his daughters were, who made their father drunk so that children might be born to him through them. But let us

console, in a few words, the seeming incongruity in the narrative. The Greeks too sought the nature of good things, bad things, and indifferent things; and those among them who arrive at it place the good and the bad in choice alone, and say, according to their own reasoning, that all things examined apart from choice are indifferent; and that choice, in its use of these, is rightly praiseworthy when used rightly, but not

rightly, blameworthy when used wrongly. I said, then, in the section on indifferent things, that to have intercourse with one's daughters is, by their own reasoning, indifferent, even though it is not proper to do such a thing in established societies; and for the sake of a hypothesis, to establish that such a thing is indifferent, they have taken as their example the wise man left alone with only his daughter, the whole human race having perished, and they inquire

whether it would be fitting for the father to unite with his daughter so that, according to this very hypothesis, the whole human race might not perish. Is it, then, that among the Greeks these things are spoken of soundly, and the sect of the Stoics — no contemptible one — argues in their favor; but when a young girl, having learned about the conflagration of the world but not having clearly grasped it, having seen fire engulfing their city and

their land, supposing that a spark of the human race had been left in her father and in herself, should wish, on account of such a supposition, to repopulate the world — will she be inferior to the wise man of the Stoic hypothesis, who fittingly, in the destruction of all mankind, unites with his daughters? I am not unaware that some, taking offense at the intention of Lot's daughters, call it unholy

they have supposed it to be his work, and they say that from unholy unions were born accursed nations, the Moabites and the Ammonites — and indeed it is not to be found that divine scripture has plainly approved this as having happened well, or has blamed and censured it either; still, however the event stands, it is referred to an allegorical meaning, and it also has a defense of its own on its own terms. Celsus casts about

the enmity, I suppose, of Esau toward Jacob, a man acknowledged by scripture to be worthless; and without clearly setting out the matter of Simeon and Levi, who avenged the outrage of their sister when she was violated by the son of the king of the Shechemites, he blames them; and he says that the sons of Jacob sold their own brother, and that Joseph was a brother sold into slavery,

and that Jacob was a father deceived, since, suspecting nothing about his sons when they displayed the "many-colored tunic" of Joseph but trusting them, "he mourned for Joseph as lost," though he was actually a slave in Egypt. But see in what a hostile and truth-hating manner Celsus has gathered his material from the history: so that wherever the history seemed to him to contain an accusation, he sets it out, but wherever

a notable display of self-control occurred — Joseph not yielding to the passion of the woman reputed to be his mistress, who at one moment coaxed him and at another threatened him — of that history he made no mention at all. For we might see Joseph as far superior to what is told of Bellerophon, choosing to be shut up in prison rather than to lose his self-controlled mind; for though he was able to defend and justify himself against his accuser, he magnanimously kept silent,

entrusting his own affairs to God. After this, Celsus, for the sake of piety, recalls with a great deal of obscurity the dreams of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker and of Pharaoh, and their interpretation, through which Joseph was brought up from prison and given, by Pharaoh's trust, the second throne over the Egyptians. What then was there absurd in the account

of the history, considered on its own, that he who entitled his work True Account — a work which does not set forth doctrines but accuses Christians and Jews — placed these things among his accusations? And of the brothers who sold him, when they were starving and were sent on a trading mission with the donkeys, he says that the one who had been sold treated them kindly, doing things that Celsus did not even set forth; and he mentions the recognition scene too, though I do not know what

he intends, or what absurdity he means to point out from the recognition. For not even Momus himself, one might say, could reasonably bring an accusation against these things, which, apart even from their allegorical sense, have great power to draw one in. He also mentions that Joseph, sold into slavery though he had been, was set free and returned in a procession to his father's grave, and he thinks the account contains an accusation when he says

this: that by him — clearly meaning Joseph — the splendid and marvelous race of the Jews, having multiplied greatly in Egypt, was ordered to dwell apart somewhere and to herd flocks among the despised. And he added, out of his own hostile disposition, the claim that they were ordered to herd flocks among the despised, without showing how Goshen, the Egyptian district, is despised, nor the exodus from Egypt

he called it a flight of the people, without even recalling from the start what is written in Exodus about how the Hebrews came out of Egyptian land. But we have set these things out too, to show that Celsus assigned to the category of accusation and nonsense even things that did not appear worthy of accusation according to their plain sense, without demonstrating by argument what he supposes to be corrupt in our scripture. Then,

as though he had devoted himself only to hating and being hostile to the teaching held by Jews and Christians, he says that even the more reasonable among Jews and Christians allegorize these things; and he says that, being ashamed of them, they take refuge in allegory. One might say to him that if the things according to the first, literal sense must be called worthy of shame, as myths and fabrications—whether

written with an underlying meaning or in whatever other way—of whom should this be said rather than of the Greek stories? In these, son-gods castrate father-gods, and father-gods swallow son-gods, and a goddess mother gives back to the father, in exchange for her son, a stone "of men and gods," and a daughter is taken by her own father in intercourse, while a wife ties her husband down, enlisting helpers for the binding

the brother of the one bound and his daughter—and why should I need to list the absurd Greek stories about the gods, which are shameful on their very face and yet are allegorized? Seeing that even Chrysippus of Soli, who is thought to have adorned the Stoa of the philosophers with many learned writings, misinterprets the painting at Samos, in which Hera was depicted performing an unspeakable act upon Zeus. For that solemn philosopher says in

his own writings that matter, having received the seminal principles of god, holds them within itself for the ordering of the universe; for the Hera and the god Zeus in the painting at Samos are matter and god. And it is on account of these myths, and countless others like them, that we are unwilling even so much as to use the name

"Zeus" for the god over all things, or "Apollo" for the sun, or "Artemis" for the moon; but practicing pure piety toward the Creator and speaking well of his beautiful works, we do not defile things divine even in name, accepting Plato's statement in the Philebus, where, unwilling to admit pleasure as a god, he says: "For my own, Protarchus," he says, "awe concerning the

names of the gods is of this kind"—we, then, truly have "awe" concerning the name of God and his beautiful works, so as not to admit some myth even on the pretext of allegorical interpretation, to the harm of the young. But if Celsus had read the scripture without bias, he would not have claimed our writings were incapable of bearing an allegorical sense. For from the prophecies, in

which the historical events are recorded, it is possible to proceed—not as from mere history—also to the histories themselves, as written with a view to allegorical interpretation and arranged most wisely, aimed both at the multitude of those who believe more simply and at the few who wish or are able to examine matters with understanding. And whether those regarded today, according to Celsus, as the more reasonable among Jews and Christians

...they were allegorizing what is written, perhaps Celsus might be suspected of saying something plausible. But since the very fathers of these doctrines and their authors give such passages a figurative interpretation, what else is one to infer than that they were written in such a way as to be interpreted figuratively according to their primary sense? We will set out a few examples from a great many, to show that Celsus slanders our scriptures in vain, as though

they were not capable of admitting allegory. It is the apostle of Jesus, Paul, who states: "Within the law stands written: do not muzzle an ox as it treads the grain. Is it oxen that concern God? Or does he say this entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake, because the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who threshes, in hope of sharing in the crop." And elsewhere the same man says: "For it is written

that for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh; this mystery is great, but I speak it as pointing to Christ and to the church." Elsewhere too he writes: "We would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers, every one of them, were beneath the cloud, and

all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses within the cloud and within the sea." Next, in explaining the story of the manna and the report that water came forth wondrously out of the rock, he speaks something to this effect: "And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from a spiritual

rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." And Asaph, showing that the narratives in Exodus and Numbers are "riddles" and "parables," as recorded in the book of Psalms, when he is about to bring these things to mind, prefaces them in this manner: "Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth;

I will unlock my mouth with parables, I will speak forth riddles from ancient days, things we have heard and come to know, which our fathers recounted to us." But even if the law of Moses contained nothing written that was disclosed through hidden meanings, the prophet, in his prayer, would not have said to God: "Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive the wonders of your law." As it stands,

however, he knew that a certain "veil" of unknowing rests over the hearts of those reading who fail to grasp what is expressed figuratively; and this "veil is taken away" as a gift of God, whenever one heeds him who made all things by himself and who, for the sake of that disposition, trained the senses to discern good and evil, and who very often said in prayer: "Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive

the wonders of your law." Now who, reading of the serpent living in the river of Egypt, and the fish nesting in its scales, or of the mountains of Egypt being filled "from the excrements" of Pharaoh, is not led at once to ask who it is that fills the mountains of the Egyptians with so many foul-smelling "excrements" of his, and what the mountains of the Egyptians

And what are the rivers in Egypt about which the aforementioned Pharaoh boasts, saying, "The rivers are mine, and I made them"? And what is the dragon that corresponds to the rivers that will be shown from the interpretation, and what are the fish among its scales? And why should I go to greater lengths establishing what needs no establishing? Concerning which it is said,

"Who is wise, and will understand these things? Or who is intelligent, and will know them?" I have extended the discussion further because I wanted to show that Celsus has not spoken soundly in saying that the more reasonable among Jews and Christians attempt somehow to allegorize these things, when in fact they are not such as to admit of any allegory but have quite plainly been mythologized in the silliest way. For the Greek myths have been fashioned not only far more silly but also far more impious,

for our own writings have also taken aim at the multitude of the simpler folk—something the makers of the Greek fictions did not guard against. That is why Plato, not without good reason, expels from his republic myths of this sort and poems of this kind. It seems to me too that I have heard there are treatises containing the allegories of the law, which, had he read them, he would not have made this claim; for at any rate the

allegories that are supposed to have been written about them are far uglier and more absurd than the myths, joining together things that can in no way whatsoever be fitted together, by some astonishing and utterly senseless folly. He seems to be speaking here about the writings of Philo, or even of still older writers, such as those of Aristobulus. I conjecture that Celsus has not read these books, since in many places it appears to me that he has been so ill-informed,

that even those among the Greeks who practice philosophy would be captured by the things he says. Among them not only is the diction well-crafted, but also the thoughts and doctrines and the use of what Celsus supposes to be myths taken from the scriptures. I myself know also Numenius the Pythagorean, a man who expounded Plato far better and championed the doctrines of the Pythagoreans, in many places of his writings

setting forth the sayings of Moses and the prophets and interpreting them figuratively in no unpersuasive way, as in the treatise called The Hoopoe and in his works on numbers and on place. And in the third book On the Good he also sets forth a certain story about Jesus, without saying his name, and interprets it figuratively; whether successfully or unsuccessfully is a matter for another occasion

to discuss. He also sets forth the story about Moses and Jannes and Jambres. But we do not take pride in that account; rather, we welcome him all the more than Celsus and the other Greeks, because he was willing, out of love of learning, to examine our writings as well, and was moved as by writings that admit of figurative interpretation and are not foolish. Next after these, having selected from all the writings

containing allegories and narratives, composed in language not to be despised, he says that the cheaper sort—capable of contributing something toward belief for the many and the simpler, but not able to move the more intelligent—is the kind of thing he recognized in the dispute of a certain Papiscus and Jason, worthy not of laughter but rather of pity and hatred. For my part, it is not my purpose to refute these things; for they are plain to everyone, I think, and especially if

...someone would endure and put up with hearing their writings. But I want rather to teach nature this: that God made nothing mortal, but the works of god are all immortal, and mortal things belong to those others. And soul is a work of god, but body is of another nature. And in this respect the body of a bat or a worm or a frog or a human will differ not at all; for the matter is the

same. And their corruptibility is alike. Nonetheless I would wish that anyone whatsoever, having heard Celsus talking grandly and asserting that the treatise entitled the Dispute of Jason and Papiscus concerning Christ is worthy not of laughter but of hatred, would take the little book in hand and endure and put up with hearing what is in it, so that from this very fact he might condemn Celsus, finding nothing worthy of hatred in

the book. And if one reads it without partisanship, he will find that the book does not even provoke laughter, in which is recorded a Christian debating with a Jew from the Jewish scriptures and showing that the prophecies about Christ apply to Jesus, even though the other party maintains the Jewish role in the argument not ignobly nor unbecomingly. I do not know how the

incompatible things, which by nature cannot occur together in human nature, he brought together and said that book was worthy of both pity and hatred. For everyone will agree that the one who is pitied is not hated, when he is pitied, and the one who is hated is not pitied, when he is hated. But Celsus says that he does not propose to refute these things for this reason, since he supposes them to be obvious to everyone, even prior to the

logical refutation, as being worthless and worthy of both pity and hatred. We urge the reader of this defense, written against Celsus's accusation, to bear with it and to listen to our writings, and, as far as possible, to conjecture from what has been written the intention of those who wrote it, and their conscience, and their disposition; for he will find men arguing fervently about what they have come to believe, some of them also displaying

also the recording of a history that has been seen and grasped as extraordinary and worthy of writing for the benefit of those who will hear it. Or let someone dare to say that believing in the God of the universe, and doing everything with reference to pleasing him in every matter, and thinking nothing displeasing to him, is not the source and origin of every benefit — as though not only words and deeds

but also thoughts are to be judged. And what other account could turn human nature more attentively toward living well than faith, or the conviction that the God over all watches over everything we say and do, and even think? For let whoever wishes compare another path, one that turns and improves not merely one person, or a

second, but as many as possible, so that by setting the two paths side by side one may accurately discern which account disposes toward the good. Since, in the passage of Celsus that I set out, which paraphrases certain things from the Timaeus, it is written that god made nothing mortal but only immortal things, while what is mortal is the handiwork of others, and

The soul, indeed, is the work of God, but the body has a different nature, and a human body differs in no respect from the body of a bat or a worm or a frog: the matter underlying them is identical, and their liability to decay is equal. Come, let us discuss these points too briefly, refuting the man who either does not acknowledge his own Epicurean opinion or, as one might say, later changed to better views,

or, as someone else might say, is merely the namesake of the Epicurean. For it was such things he ought to have declared, and to have argued the contrary — proposing this not only to us but also to the not ignoble school of philosophers descended from Zeno of Citium — namely, to demonstrate that animal bodies owe nothing to God's workmanship, and that the great skill evident in them has not come from the

primal mind. And regarding the many kinds of plants too, governed by an inherent, unperceiving nature, and having come into being for use — not something to be despised in the universe as a whole — for the benefit of human beings and of the animals that serve human beings, however else they might exist, he ought not merely to have declared but also to have taught that no perfect mind produced such great and varied qualities in the matter of the

plants. But if he once made gods the craftsmen of all bodies, on the ground that soul alone is the work of God, how was it not the next step for him, who was dividing up so many works of craftsmanship and assigning them to many, to construct — with some argument not to be despised — distinctions among the gods: these fashioning human bodies, others, let us say, the bodies of cattle, and others of wild beasts? And he ought, seeing gods as craftsmen of serpents and

asps and basilisks — and that there are certain craftsmen for each individual species of these, and others for the species of each plant and each herb — to state the causes of these divisions. For perhaps, had he devoted himself to the precision of the inquiry proper to this subject, he would either have maintained one god as craftsman of all things, who made each thing for some purpose and for the sake of something, or, if he did not maintain this,

he would have seen what defense he ought to offer regarding a matter that is, to his own view of nature, a matter of indifference — namely, that of what is perishable — and that it is nothing absurd for a world composed of dissimilar things to have come into being through a single craftsman, who fashions the differences among the species to the advantage of the whole. Or at the very least he ought not even to have made a pronouncement at the outset about so weighty a doctrine, if he was not going to demonstrate what he professed to teach; unless,

of course, the man who reproaches those who profess mere belief himself wanted us to believe the things he had merely declared — even though he professed not to declare but to teach. I am not yet even saying that he would have noticed, had he put up with and consented to listen to the writings, as he calls them, of Moses and the prophets, why it is that 'God made' is used with reference to heaven and earth, and

of the so-called firmament, and further also of the lights and the stars, and after these of the great sea creatures and of every living soul among the 'creeping things which the waters brought forth according to their kinds,' and of every winged bird 'according to kind,' and next, after these, of the beasts 'of the earth according to kind,' and of the cattle 'according to kind,' and of all the creeping things 'of the

...their kind, and last of all in the case of man. But since "he made" is not said concerning the other things, the text is content, in the case of light, with "let there be light," and in the case of the single gathering together of all the water under the whole of heaven, with "and it was so"; and likewise also in the case of the things that sprouted from the earth, when "the earth brought forth vegetation, grass sowing seed according to its kind

and according to likeness, and a fruit-bearing tree producing fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind, upon the earth." And he would have asked whether the written commands of God concerning the coming into being of each part of the world were spoken to someone or to several persons, and he would not so readily have accused as unintelligible, and as possessing no hidden understanding, the things written either by Moses

in these passages, or, to put it in our own words, by the divine spirit residing in Moses, from which he also prophesied — since he knew, better than those among the poets who are said to have learned such things from seers, the things that are, the things that will be, and the things that were before. Further, since Celsus says that the soul is a work of God, while the body is of a different nature, and that in this respect

the body of a bat, a maggot, a frog, or a human being will differ in no way, since the matter is the same and their corruptibility alike — we must also say in reply to this argument of his that if a bat's body, a maggot's, a frog's, and a human being's all rest upon identical matter, so that these bodies will not differ from one another, then clearly the bodies of these will not differ from those

of the sun, the moon, the stars, the heaven, or of anything else whatsoever termed among the Greeks a perceptible god. For the same matter, which underlies all bodies, is in its own proper account without quality and without shape, and I do not know, on Celsus's principles — since he does not wish anything corruptible to be a work of God — by what it is that it receives its qualities. For whatever is corruptible must necessarily, in every case,

since it has come to be out of the same underlying matter, be, according to Celsus, of like character to its own account. Unless, that is, Celsus, hard-pressed at this point, will leap away from Plato, who makes the soul out of a certain mixing-bowl, and take refuge instead with Aristotle and the Peripatetics, who say that the aether is immaterial and that it is of a fifth nature besides the four elements — a position on which

both the Platonists and the Stoics have taken their stand, and not without reason. And we too, despised though we are by Celsus, will take our stand, when we are called upon to explain and to establish what is said in the prophet thus: "The heavens will perish, but you will remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up [like a garment], and they will be changed. But you are the same,

you are." Still, it is enough to answer Celsus, even granting this much, that though the soul is a work of God while the body is of a different nature, the logical consequence of his own position is that the body of a bat, or a maggot, or a frog does not differ at all from an ethereal body. See, then, whether one ought to side with someone who accuses the Christians on the basis of such doctrines, while abandoning his own argument by granting that there is a difference among bodies owing to the qualities attached to them, and

concerning bodies. For we too know that there are "both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies," and that the "glory" of "heavenly" bodies is one thing and that of "earthly" ones another, and that not even "heavenly" bodies share the same glory; for the sun's splendor is one thing, and the splendor belonging to the stars another, and even among the stars themselves "one star outshines another in splendor." Therefore also the resurrection "of the dead"

we accept, we say that changes occur in the qualities present in bodies; since some of them, though put into the ground perishable, come up imperishable, and put in dishonor are raised in glory, and put in weakness rise again in power, and natural bodies, when sown, are raised as spiritual bodies. As for the underlying matter being receptive of the qualities the creator wishes, all of us who accept providence maintain this;

and when God wills it, the quality now present regarding this matter is of a certain kind, and afterward, let us say, of another kind — better and different. And since there are also ordered paths of the changes that occur in bodies, from the time the world exists and for as long as it exists, I do not know whether, once a new and different path has taken over after the destruction of the world — the very path which our own

discourses call the consummation ’ it would not be surprising if, in the present case, a snake, transformed from a dead human being, as most people say, arises from the spinal marrow, and a bee arising from an ox, a wasp born of a horse, and a beetle springing from a donkey, and, quite simply, worms out of most bodies. Celsus supposes this shows that none of these creatures is God's work, but rather that

the qualities ’ I do not know from where ’ being thus ordered, come to be these from those, are not the work of some divine reason altering the qualities in matter. Further, we say this too to Celsus, who asserted: the soul stands as God's work, whereas the body belongs to another nature ’ and who has thrown out so great a doctrine not only without preparation but also without definition; for he did not make clear whether every

soul is a work of God, or only the rational one. We say to him, then: if every soul without exception is God's work, this plainly takes in even the souls of irrational and most worthless creatures, so that for every body too there would be a nature different from that of the soul. Yet he seems, in what follows — in which he even says that irrational animals are dearer to God than we are and have a purer conception of the divine —

to be establishing that not only the soul of human beings but much more also that of irrational animals is the work of God; since that is what follows once one calls those creatures dearer to God than ourselves. But if only the rational soul is the work of God, then first, he did not make this clear; and second, it follows from his having spoken without definition about the soul that it is not every soul

but only the rational soul that is the work of God — and that not every body has a different nature. But if not every body has a different nature, but rather the body of each animal is proportionate to its soul, it is clear that wherever the soul is the work of God, its body would differ from the body in which dwells a soul that is not the work of God. And thus it would prove false

the body of a bat, or a worm, or a frog would differ not at all from that of a human being. For indeed it would be absurd for stones to be considered purer or more polluted than other stones, and buildings than other buildings, on the ground that they were constructed in honor of the divine or for the reception of the most dishonorable and accursed bodies, while bodies did not differ from bodies according to whether the beings dwelling in them were rational or irrational, and

among rational beings, whether they were the more excellent or the basest of men. It is just such a notion that has emboldened some to deify the bodies of distinguished persons, on the ground that they received a noble soul, and to cast away or dishonor the bodies of the basest, not because such a practice is altogether sound, but because it took its origin from some sound conception. Or will the wise man, in like manner, after the death of Anytus and

Socrates, concern himself with the burial of Socrates' body and that of Anytus, and build a similar mound or tomb for both alike? And this too, because none of these things is the work of a god — the same god who is said to be responsible both for the human body and for the snakes that come from that body, and for the body of an ox and the bees born from an ox's body, and for the

body of a horse or of an ass, together with the wasps born from a horse and the beetles born from an ass — on account of which we were compelled to take up again the point that soul is the work of god, but body is of a different nature. Then next he says that the nature of all the aforesaid bodies is common, and one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And it is clear from what has already been said in reply to this too that

the nature is common not only to the bodies previously enumerated but also to the "heavenly" bodies. And if this is indeed so, it is clear that, according to him — though I do not know whether it is also so in truth — the nature of all bodies is one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And it is clear that this holds according to those who hold that the world is corruptible; but

even those who do not hold the world to be corruptible, while refusing to admit a "fifth body," will try to show that according to them too the nature of all bodies is one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And in this way even that which perishes persists into change; for the substrate, matter, persists when the quality perishes, according to those who introduce it as ungenerated. If, however,

some argument should be able to demonstrate that it is not ungenerated but came to be for some particular need, plainly it does not share, as regards permanence, the same nature supposed for that which is ungenerated. But it does not lie before us now, as we meet Celsus' accusations, to discourse on natural philosophy. He says that nothing born of matter is immortal. And in reply to this it will be said that, if in truth nothing sprung from matter is immortal, then one alternative is that the whole

world is immortal, and not as being born of matter, or it too is not an immortal thing. If, then, the world is immortal — a view also welcomed by those who hold that god's work is the soul alone, itself said to have arisen from a certain mixing-bowl — let Celsus show that it did not come to be out of qualityless matter, while holding to the principle that nothing born of matter is immortal; but if

Since the world is the offspring of matter, the world is not immortal; the world is mortal. Is it, then, also subject to destruction, or not? For if it is subject to destruction, it will be, as the work of God, subject to destruction; and then, in the destruction of the world, what will the soul, which is God's work, do? Let Celsus say. But if, twisting the concept of "immortal," he says that

though it is destructible it is nevertheless not destroyed, and is thus immortal, as being receptive of death yet not in fact dying—clearly on his view something will be at once mortal and immortal, by being receptive of both; and there will be a mortal thing that does not die, and what is not immortal by nature will, contrary to "not dying," be called immortal in its own peculiar sense. By what meaning, then, does he distinguish and say that

nothing born of matter is immortal? And you see that these notions, when pressed and put to the test, are refuted by the very letters that contain them, since they do not admit of anything noble or unassailable. Having said this, he adds that on this subject so much is sufficient; and if anyone is able to hear and inquire further, he will know. Let us, then, who by his reckoning are unintelligent, see what follows for one who is able even

to hear a little of him and to inquire. Next, what has been investigated in various ways, through many arguments not to be despised, concerning the nature of evils, and explained in different ways, he thinks we can learn through a few little phrases, saying: "Evils in existing things have neither in the past nor now nor in the future been less or more; for the nature of the whole is one

and the same, and the coming-to-be of evils is always the same." This too seems to have been paraphrased from the passages in the Theaetetus, where the Socrates of Plato says: "But it is not possible for evils to be destroyed from among men, nor can they be established among the gods," and so on. And it seems to me that he has not even heard Plato accurately—this man who claims to encompass the truth in this one

treatise of his and who entitles his book against us True Doctrine. For the passage in the Timaeus which says, "whenever the gods cleanse the earth with water," has shown that the earth, once cleansed by the waters, has fewer evils than it had in the time before its cleansing. And we say this, in agreement with Plato, that evils are at some times fewer, because of

the passage in the Theaetetus which says that it is not possible for "evils to be destroyed from among men." But I do not know in what way, positing providence, he says, so far as the wording of this book goes, that evils are neither more nor fewer but as it were fixed in number—thereby doing away with the excellent doctrine that vice, and evils, are indeterminate and, by their own nature, unlimited.

And it seems to follow from the claim that evils have neither become nor are nor will become fewer or more, that just as, according to those who hold the world to be indestructible, the equal balance of the elements comes about through providence, which does not allow any one of them to gain the advantage, lest the world be destroyed—so likewise a kind of providence, as it were, stands guard over evils, which happen to be just so many, so that they may become neither more nor

...lesser. And Celsus's account of evils is refuted in another way as well, from the philosophers who have examined and set forth the truth about goods and evils, and from history: that at first the courtesans, wearing masks, hired themselves out to those who wanted them outside the city, but later, growing contemptuous, they set aside the masks, and since the laws did not permit them to enter the cities, they stayed outside them.

But as depravity increased day by day, they eventually dared even to enter the cities. Chrysippus reports this in his Introduction on Good and Evil Things. From this one can grasp that, as evils become more numerous or fewer, those called "ambiguous" once held a leading position, both suffering and inflicting, and enslaved to the desires of those who came in to them; but later

the market officials drove them out. And one could speak of countless things that entered human life from vice once it had spread abroad, of which it can be said that they did not exist before. The most ancient histories, at any rate, for all that they accuse wrongdoers of countless things, know nothing of people who commit unspeakable acts. How, from these examples and others like them, does Celsus not appear ridiculous, in thinking that evils never become either more

or fewer? For even granting that the universe's nature is single and unchanging, it hardly follows that the origin of evils remains forever identical. For just as, although the nature of this or that particular man is one and the same, the state of his governing faculty, his reason, and his actions is not always the same — at one time

he has not yet taken up reason at all, at another time he has vice along with reason, and this vice is poured out either more or less; and there are times when, having been turned toward virtue and making progress, he advances either more or less, and sometimes he even reaches virtue itself, which occurs in a greater or lesser number of areas of contemplation — so it can be said, all the more, also concerning the nature of the universe,

that even granting it is single and uniform in kind, the same things, or things of the same kind, do not always occur in the whole. For there are not always good harvests, nor always failed harvests, nor always heavy rains, nor always droughts; and in the same way there are not fixed abundances or scarcities of better souls, and there is a greater or lesser outpouring of worse ones. And this account of evils is necessary for those who wish

to examine everything as precisely as possible, since things do not always remain in the same state, on account of the providence that either preserves what is on earth or purifies it by floods and conflagrations — and perhaps not only what is on earth but also what is in the whole cosmos, when it stands in need of purification, whenever great vice has arisen within it. After this Celsus says:

"What the origin of evils is, is not easy for one who has not studied philosophy to know, but it is enough for the general public to be told that evils do not come from God, but are attached to matter and dwell among mortal beings; and from its beginning to its close, the round of mortal existence stays uniform, so that by the ordained recurring cycles the same things must, of necessity, have occurred before and occur again."

...and will be. Celsus says that the origin of evils is not easy to know for one who has not philosophized, since the one who philosophizes can easily know their origin, while the one who does not philosophize is not able to observe the origin of evils easily — except that, though with effort, it is nonetheless possible to know it. We, however,

also say to this that the origin of evils is not easy to know even for the one who has philosophized, and perhaps it is not possible for these to know it purely either, unless by God's inspiration it is made clear both what the evils are, and it is shown how they came to subsist, and it is understood in what manner they will be done away with. Since, then, ignorance about God is itself among the evils, and since

not knowing the manner of the service owed to God and of piety toward him is also the greatest evil, certainly, even by Celsus's own account, some of those who have philosophized did not know this, which is clear from the differing schools within philosophy; but among us no one who has not come to know that it is an evil to suppose that piety is preserved by abiding in the laws established according to constitutions conceived in the more common way will be able

to know the origin of evils. And no one who has not grasped the matters concerning the one called the devil and his angels — who this being was before he became the devil, and how he became the devil, and what the cause was of his so-called angels revolting along with him — will be able to know the origin of evils. And the one who is going to

know this must also have made a more precise determination concerning demons: that they are not, insofar as they are demons, creations of God, but only insofar as they are certain rational beings; and whence they came to become such that their ruling faculty came to subsist in the condition of demons. If, then, there is any other subject among the matters concerning human beings requiring investigation that is by nature hard to track down for our nature, among these would also be reckoned

the origin of evils. Then, as though he had certain more esoteric things to say about the origin of evils but was keeping silent about those and saying instead what suits the multitude, he says that it is enough, as far as the multitude is concerned, to have said about the origin of evils that evils do not come from God, but are attached to matter and dwell among mortal beings. Now it is true, then, that

evils do not come from God; for according to our Jeremiah too it is clear that "evils and good will not go out from the mouth of the Lord." But that matter, dwelling among mortal beings, is the cause of evils is not true according to us. For each person's ruling faculty is the cause of the vice that comes to subsist in it, and this vice is the evil; and evil too are

the actions that proceed from it. And nothing else, strictly speaking, is evil according to us. But I know that this account requires much elaboration and careful construction, by the grace of God who illuminates the ruling faculty, for those judged by God worthy of it and capable also of attaining the knowledge concerning this subject. I do not know, however, how it seemed useful to Celsus, writing against us, to toss out

a doctrine that requires a great deal of proof, even though it seems to demonstrate, as far as possible, that mortal existence runs a uniform round from its start to its close, and that by the ordained recurring cycles the same things must, of necessity, always have occurred and be occurring and be destined to occur. But if this is true, what is up to us is abolished. For if according to the fixed recurrences it is necessary that the same things always

have happened and be happening and be going to happen within the cycle of mortal things, then it is clear that it is necessary that Socrates will always philosophize and always be accused over strange divinities and the corruption of the young, that Anytus and Meletus will always accuse him, and that the council of the Areopagus will always condemn him to die by drinking hemlock; and by that same logic it must always be, according to the fixed cycles,

Phalaris will be a tyrant and Alexander of Pherae will commit the same acts of savagery, and that those condemned to Phalaris's bull will always bellow within it. If these things are granted, I do not know how what is up to us will be preserved, or how praise and blame will make sense any longer. Against such a hypothesis it will be said to Celsus that, if indeed the cycle of mortal things is the same

from beginning to end forever, and according to the fixed recurrences the same things must always both have happened and be happening and be going to happen, then it is necessary that always, according to the fixed cycles, Moses went out of Egypt with the people of the Jews, and that Jesus will again come to dwell among the living to do the same things, things he has done not once but infinitely many times according to the cycles; and moreover that the Christians themselves

will be the very same people in the fixed recurrences, and that Celsus will again write this very book, having already written it infinitely many times before. Celsus, then, says that only the cycle of mortal things has, by necessity, according to the fixed recurrences, always come to be and be and will be; but most of the Stoics say that it is not only the cycle of mortal things that is like this, but also that

of the immortals and of the gods according to their teaching. For after the conflagration of the universe, which has occurred infinitely many times and will occur infinitely many times, the very same order has come to be and will come to be from beginning to end of all things. Yet, in trying somehow to remedy the absurdities of this, the Stoics say — I do not know how — that in each cycle all will be indistinguishable from those of the earlier cycles, so that

Socrates will not come to be again, but rather someone indistinguishable from Socrates, who will marry someone indistinguishable from Xanthippe and will be accused by men indistinguishable from Anytus and Meletus. But I do not know how the world is always the same and not a distinct one indistinguishable from another, while the things within it are not the same but merely indistinguishable. But the argument that takes precedence, both in reply to Celsus's words and

in reply to the Stoics, will be examined more fittingly elsewhere, since it is not appropriate, given our present occasion and purpose, to dwell at length on these matters. After this he says that visible things have not been given to man, but that each thing comes to be and perishes for the sake of the preservation of the whole, according to the exchange I mentioned before, from one thing into another; but it is superfluous to spend more time

in their refutation, which we have set out as far as possible. It has also been said with a view to this: that neither the good things nor the bad things among mortals could be fewer or more numerous than they are. It has also been said with a view to this: that God has no need of any newer correction. But God does not, like a man who has built something deficiently and produced it rather unskillfully, bring correction to the world by purifying it

with a flood or a conflagration, but by preventing the spread of wickedness from pouring out any further; and I think, moreover, that he does away with it altogether, in an orderly way, for the advantage of the whole. But whether, after the disappearance of wickedness, it makes sense for it to arise again or not, such matters will be examined in their proper place. Does God, then, wish always to take up failures by means of an ever-newer correction?

For even if all things have been arranged by him in the finest and most secure way, in keeping with the creation of the universe as a whole, nonetheless he had no less need of a kind of medical art for those who are diseased with wickedness, and for the whole world, defiled as it were by it; and nothing whatsoever has been neglected by God, nor will be, since at every moment he does precisely what it was fitting for him to do in a world subject to turning and change.

And just as a farmer, according to the different seasons of the year, performs different farming tasks upon the earth and the things growing on it, so God administers, as it were, certain years - if I may call them that - and manages whole ages, doing in each of them whatever is demanded by the very rational principle concerning the universe, which is grasped in its clearest form, as truth, by God alone,

and brought to completion. Celsus put forward an argument of this kind about evils: that even if something seems evil to you, it is not yet clear that it is evil, for you cannot know what serves your own good, or another's, or that of the whole. And the argument has a certain caution to it, but it also implies that the nature of evils is not entirely bad, because

it is possible for what is reckoned an evil among particular things to be advantageous to the whole. Yet, so that no one, by mishearing what is said, may find in it an occasion for depravity - as though his own wickedness too happened to be useful to the whole, or at least capable of being useful - it will be said that, provided what is within our own power is preserved in each person, even if God makes use of the wickedness of the wicked for the ordering of the whole,

arranging them for the use of the whole, such a person is no less blameworthy for that; and, blameworthy as he is, he has been arranged for a use that is undesirable for the individual but useful to the whole. It is as if someone, speaking about cities, were to say that a certain man who has committed such-and-such offenses, and who on account of his offenses has been condemned to certain public works useful to the whole, does something

useful to the whole city, while he himself has come to be in an undesirable situation, one that no one of even moderate sense would wish to be in. And Paul, the apostle of Jesus, teaching us that even the basest people will contribute something to the need of the whole, but will themselves be among the undesirable things, while the most excellent will also prove most useful of all to the whole,

who will be assigned, on their own account, to the finest place, he says: "A great household holds vessels not merely of gold and silver, but also ones made of wood and of earthenware, and while some serve honorable use, others serve dishonorable use; so if anyone purifies himself, he becomes a vessel fit for honor, made holy, useful to its master, made ready for every good work." And these things, too,

I suppose were necessarily set forth so that even if something seems bad to you, it is not yet clear that it is bad; for you do not know what is beneficial either to yourself or to another, lest anyone take occasion from what pertains to his place to sin, on the ground that he will be useful to the whole through his sin. But since after this, not understanding the expressions in the scriptures about God that are

framed as if he had human feelings, Celsus ridicules those in which words of wrath are spoken against the impious and threats against those who have sinned, it must be said that just as we, when speaking with quite young children, do not aim at our own capability in speaking, but adapt ourselves to the weakness of those we are addressing and say these things, and indeed do what appears to us useful for

the correction and improvement of children as children, so too the Word of God seems to have arranged the things that are written, measuring what was fitting in the telling by the capacity of the hearers and by what was useful to them; and generally, concerning this manner of speaking about God, it is said thus in Deuteronomy: "The LORD your God bore with your ways, as

if a man should bear with his son." As it were bearing human ways for what is profitable to human beings, the Word speaks in this fashion; for the many had no need of God fashioning a persona and adapting to himself what would be said to such people. But whoever cares about the clarity of the divine writings will find in them the things called spiritual said to those who are called spiritual, comparing the intent of what is said

to the weaker with what is announced to the more discerning, since often both are contained in the same wording for the one who knows how to hear it. We call it, then, the wrath of God, but we do not say that it is a passion of his, but something adopted for the instruction, through rather severe methods, of those who have committed such and so many sins. For that the so-called wrath of God

and his so-called fury do indeed instruct, and that this pleases the Word, is clear from the fact that it is said in the sixth Psalm: "Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor discipline me in your wrath," and in Jeremiah: "Discipline us, Lord, but in judgment and not in fury, lest you make us few." And if someone, reading in

the second book of Kingdoms of the "wrath" of God that persuaded David to number the people, and in the first book of Chronicles of the "devil" doing so, and examines the two statements together, he will see under what heading the wrath is classed; and Paul says that all men were "children" of this wrath, saying: "We were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest were." And that it is not a passion of God

...is anger, but that each person prepares it for himself through the things by which he sins, Paul will make clear in this passage: "Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you toward repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath against yourself, to be unleashed on that day of wrath and revelation

of God's righteous judgment." So how can each person "store up wrath for himself on the day of wrath," when "wrath" is understood as a passion? And how can the passion of wrath serve to educate anyone? But also, the reasoning that instructs us never to give way to anger, declaring in the thirty-sixth psalm, "Cease from anger and forsake wrath," also says through Paul, "You too must put away all these

things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, foul talk" — this reason would not have attached the passion to God himself, from whom he wishes to free us entirely. And it is clear that the statements about God's anger are to be taken figuratively, from the fact that his sleep too is recorded, from which the prophet, as though rousing him from sleep, says, "Arise, why do you sleep, Lord?" And again he says, "And the Lord awoke as one asleep, like a mighty man

recovering from the stupor of wine." If, then, sleep signifies something other than what the ready sense of the word indicates, why will anger not be understood in the same way? And the threats are announcements about what will befall the wicked, just as if one were to say that a physician's words too are threats, when he says to the sick, I will cut you and

apply cauteries to you, if you do not obey my instructions and do not follow this regimen and conduct yourself in this way. We therefore do not attach human passions to God, nor do we hold impious opinions about him, nor, going astray, do we set forth the accounts concerning him without examining them against one another from the scriptures themselves; nor is what is proposed by those among us who intelligently expound the word anything else

than, so far as possible, to free the hearers from foolishness and make them sensible. Consequently, because he has not understood what is written about the wrath of God, he says: Or is it not ridiculous — if a man, angered at the Jews, destroyed all of them, young and old, and burned them, this would have been nothing out of the ordinary; but the greatest God, as they say, growing angry and enraged and threatening, sends his

son, and he suffers such things? If, then, the Jews, after doing what they dared against Jesus, were destroyed young and old and burned, they have suffered this from no other anger than the one they stored up for themselves, the judgment of God against them having come about through a settled disposition of God, called "anger" by a certain ancestral custom of the Hebrews. And the son of the greatest God does indeed suffer, having willed it

for the salvation of mankind, as has been said by us above so far as possible. After this he says: But so that the argument may concern not the Jews alone (for that is not what I am saying) but the whole of nature, as I promised earlier, I shall set out what has already been said with greater clarity. Who, encountering these things, if moderate and perceiving human weakness, would not

...would the burdensome character be avoided of one who promised to give an account concerning the whole of nature, and boasted just as he dared to write in the title of his book? Let us see, then, what it is he promises to say concerning the whole of nature, and what he will make plain. And through many things in what follows he charges us with saying that God made everything for the sake of man. And he wants, from the account concerning animals

and the shrewdness apparent in them, to show that all things came to be no more for the sake of humans than for the sake of irrational animals. And it seems to me that he says something similar to those who, out of hatred toward the people they hate, accuse them of the very things for which those persons' dearest friends are praised. For just as in these cases hatred blinds them so that they do not see that they are also accusing dearest friends

through the very things by which they think they are speaking ill of their enemies. In the same way Celsus too, his reasoning confused, has not seen that he is also accusing the philosophers of the Stoa - who are not wrong to place man first, and in general the rational nature above all the irrational, and who say that Providence made everything primarily for the sake of this. And rational beings do have reason, being

the primary ones - as when children are born, while the irrational and inanimate things come into being alongside, as the afterbirth is created together with the child. And I consider that, just as in cities those who take forethought for the goods for sale and for the marketplace take forethought for no other reason than for the sake of the people, yet dogs too and other irrational creatures share as a side-benefit in the abundance - so too Providence takes forethought primarily for the rational,

but it followed as a consequence that the irrational too enjoy the things that come to be for the sake of humans. And just as the one errs who says that market officials take forethought no more for humans than for dogs, since dogs too enjoy as a side-benefit the abundance of goods for sale, so much more do Celsus and those who think as he does act impiously toward the God who takes forethought for the rational - when they say: 'Why

do these things come to be for food any more for humans than for plants, trees, grasses, and thorns?' For he supposes, first, that thunder and lightning and rains are not works of God - already more openly playing the Epicurean; and second he says that, granting for argument's sake that these are works of God, they still come to be for food no more for us humans than for plants,

trees, grasses, and thorns - giving them by chance, and not according to Providence, holding, truly as an Epicurean would, that these things happen so. For if these things prove no more useful to humans than they do to plants, trees, grasses, and thorns, it is clear that they do not come from Providence at all, or else they come from a Providence that takes no more forethought for us than for trees and grass and thorn. And each of these positions

is impious on the face of it. And for one to stand opposing us with such things while charging us with impiety is foolish; for it is clear to everyone from what has been said who the impious one is. Then he says that even if you claim these things grow for the sake of humans (clearly meaning the plants and trees and grasses and thorns), why will you say they grow for humans any more than for the wildest of the irrational animals? Clearly

Let Celsus, then, claim that so vast a variety among earth's growing things owes nothing to providence, and that instead some chance combination of atoms has produced so many qualities, and that by chance so many species of plants and trees and grasses resemble one another; and that no rational design gave them their existence, nor do they have their origin from mind—a claim that surpasses all wonder. But we

Christians, who are devoted to the God who alone created these things, give thanks also to him who is the maker of these very things, because he has prepared so great a dwelling place for us, and for our sake for the animals that serve us: "who makes grass grow for the cattle, and green plants for the service of man, to bring forth bread from the earth, and that wine may gladden the heart of man, and that his face may shine

with oil, and that bread may strengthen the heart of man." And if he has also prepared food for the wildest of animals, that is nothing to wonder at; for other philosophers too have said that these animals exist for the training of the rational animal. And a sage from among our own people remarks in one place: "Ask not, what is this thing, or for what purpose? For everything has been made to serve some use,"

and, "Do not say, what is this? To what end is this? For all things will be sought out in their time." Next after this, Celsus, wishing to argue that providence has not made the things that grow on the earth for us any more than for the wildest of animals, says: We indeed toil and struggle and are fed only with difficulty and hardship, while for them "all things grow unsown and unploughed"—not seeing that

since God wishes human understanding to be exercised everywhere, so that it may not remain idle and without invention of the arts, he made man needy, so that on account of his very neediness he might be compelled to discover arts, some for the sake of food and others for the sake of shelter. For indeed it was better for those who were not going to seek and philosophize about divine things to be in want, so that they might

use their understanding for the discovery of arts, rather than neglect understanding altogether through having everything in abundance. It is, at any rate, the want of the necessities of life that gave rise to farming, and to viticulture, and to the arts concerned with gardens, and to carpentry and metalworking, arts that produce the tools for the arts that serve the provision of food; and the want of shelter gave rise to

weaving, along with carding and spinning, and to building. And thus understanding has ascended even to architecture. And the lack of necessities has also caused the things produced in other places to be carried by seafaring and navigation to those who do not have them, so that on this account too one might admire providence, which has made the rational animal needy to its advantage, in contrast to

the irrational animals. For the irrational animals have their food ready at hand, since they have no resource for arts, and they have natural covering as well, for they are covered with hair, or feathers, or scales, or shells. Let this too be said in our defense against the statement made by Celsus: We indeed toil and struggle and are fed only with difficulty, while they

and "all things grow unsown and unplowed." Next, forgetting that his stated aim is to accuse Jews and Christians, he brings against himself a line of iambic verse from Euripides that runs counter to his own opinion, and, closing with what has been said, he accuses it as badly spoken. Celsus's text runs as follows: "But if you will also cite the line of Euripides, that 'the sun and the night are slaves'

to mortals,' why should this hold any more true of us than of ants and flies? For with them as well night arrives to bring rest, and day to make seeing and working possible." It is clear, then, that it is not only certain Jews and Christians who have said that the sun and the things in heaven are slaves to us, but also the man who, according to some, was a stage-poet and a hearer of the natural philosophy of

Anaxagoras. He says that, from the one case of the rational being, man, the things arranged in the universe are said, by synecdoche, to be slaves to all rational beings — again indicated by synecdoche through the phrase "the sun and the night." Or perhaps the tragedian, taking the name from the sun which makes the day, called it "day," teaching that the things most in need of day and night are those under the moon,

and not otherwise, but as the things on earth are. Day, then, and "night are slaves to mortals," having come about on account of rational beings. And should ants and flies happen to share, incidentally, in the benefit — working by day and resting at night — of things brought about because of human beings, it does not follow that day and night must likewise be said to have come to be because of ants and flies, nor for no purpose at all; rather, one must

suppose that these have come about by providence for the sake of human beings. Next, he brings against himself the arguments made on behalf of human beings, that the irrational animals have been made for their sake. And he says: if someone should call us rulers of the animals, since we hunt the other animals and feast on them, we shall reply: why should it not rather be that we came to be for their sake, since they hunt us and eat us? But

we need nets and weapons and a good number of human helpers and dogs against the creatures we hunt, whereas to them nature has straightway given weapons of their own, readily subjecting us to them. And here too you see in what way understanding has been given to us as a great aid, better than any weapon, which the beasts seem not to possess. We at any rate, though far

weaker in body than some of the animals, and in the case of others far smaller, master them through our understanding, and we even hunt elephants of such great size, subjecting those that are naturally tame to our gentle rule, and against those not naturally so, or those that seem to offer us no use through taming, we stand secure by our own resources; so that, whenever we wish,

we keep such great beasts penned up, and whenever we need food from their bodies, we kill them just as we do the animals that are not wild. All things, then, the Creator has made slaves of the rational animal and of its natural understanding. And for some purposes we need dogs, for instance, for guarding flocks or herds of cattle or goats or houses, for

and others for oxen, as for farming; for other purposes we use beasts of burden as pack animals. So too, he says, the class of lions and bears and leopards and pigs and creatures of that sort has been given to us as training ground for the seeds of courage within us. Then he speaks of the human race as those who perceive their own superiority over the irrational animals, in that

to what you people say — that God has given us the power to catch and make use of wild beasts — we shall say that this is likely: before there were cities and crafts and such gatherings together, and weapons and nets, human beings were being seized and eaten by wild beasts, while wild beasts were scarcely ever caught by human beings. But observe, in reply to this, that even if human beings now catch wild beasts, and wild beasts

seize human beings, there is a great difference between those who prevail by intelligence over creatures that get the upper hand through savagery and cruelty, and those who make no use of intelligence to avoid suffering anything at the hands of wild beasts. As for the claim "before there were cities and crafts and such gatherings together," I think this forgets what he said further above — that the cosmos is ungenerated and indestructible, and that only the things upon the earth undergo floods and

conflagrations, and not all of them fall victim to these at the same time. So then, for those who suppose the cosmos to be ungenerated, it is not possible to name a beginning of it, nor likewise a time when there were as yet no cities at all, nor had crafts yet been discovered. But let us grant even this to him — consistently with our own view, though no longer consistently with him and with what he himself said further above — what, then, does this have to do with the claim that altogether

in the beginning human beings were seized and eaten by wild beasts, while wild beasts were no longer caught by human beings? For if indeed the cosmos came into being by providence, and God stands over the whole of it, it was necessary that the sparks of the human race, once they had begun, should have come to be under some guardianship from beings superior to them, so that in the beginning there came to be an intermingling of the divine nature with

human beings. This is indeed what the poet of Ascra had in mind when he said: "for then there were shared feasts, and shared seats, for the immortal gods and for mortal human beings." And the divine account according to Moses likewise introduced the first human beings as hearing a more divine voice and oracles, and as sometimes seeing visits of the angels of God taking place to them. For it is likely that at the beginning of the cosmos

human nature was helped to a greater degree, until, once progress had been made toward understanding and the rest of the virtues and the discovery of the crafts, people should be able to live by themselves, no longer needing those who continually oversee and manage them by means of an extraordinary manifestation of beings who serve the will of God. And it follows from this that it is a falsehood that in the beginning human beings were seized and eaten by wild beasts,

while wild beasts were scarcely ever caught by human beings. From this, then, it is clear that what is said by Celsus in this way is also false — that in this respect God subjected human beings to wild beasts rather than the reverse. For God did not subject human beings to wild beasts; rather, he gave it to human intelligence that wild beasts should be capable of being caught, and to the animals subsisting on the basis of intelligence

the crafts of those creatures. For it was not without divine aid that human beings contrived for themselves safety from the wild beasts and mastery over them. Yet this noble fellow does not see how many philosophers introduce providence and say that it does everything for the sake of rational beings, and he is destroying, so far as he is able, doctrines useful to the agreement of Christians with philosophy on these points, nor does he see how much harm is done in hindering

piety by accepting that a human being differs in no way from ants or bees in God's sight. He says that if human beings seem to differ from irrational animals because they have settled in cities and make use of civic government, magistracies, and leaderships, this is nothing to the point, since ants and bees behave no differently. Bees, at any rate, have a leader, and there is

among them following and service, wars and victories, and the flight of the defeated, and cities, and suburbs too, and a succession of works, and punishments against the idle and the wicked - at any rate they drive off and punish the drones. But not even in these things has he seen in what respect deeds accomplished by reason and rational nature differ from those that come about from irrational nature and mere constitution,

without any reason residing in the beings that produce them (for they do not possess it), while the eldest, who is the Son of God and king of all subject things, has made an irrational nature to help, as an irrational thing, those not deemed worthy of reason. So among human beings cities came into being together with many crafts and the ordering of laws; but civic governments, magistracies, and leaderships

among human beings are either, properly speaking, certain excellent states and activities so called in the strict sense, or else they are so named more loosely, by way of imitation, so far as possible, of those excellent states; for it was by looking to those excellent states that the most successful lawgivers established the best forms of civic government and the best magistracies and leaderships. None of this can be found among irrational creatures, even if Celsus transfers the rational names

assigned properly to rational beings - city, forms of civic government, magistracies, leaderships - to ants and bees as well. On this basis ants or bees are in no way to be admitted as possessing these things (for they do not act with reasoning), but the divine nature is to be marveled at, for extending even to irrational creatures something like an imitation of what belongs to rational beings, perhaps in order to put rational beings to shame, so that by observing ants

they might become more industrious and more careful stewards of what is useful to them, and by studying bees they might learn to obey their leaders and to divide among themselves the useful tasks of civic life for the preservation of their cities. And perhaps even the wars, as it were, of the bees are set before us as a lesson toward just and orderly wars, should the need ever arise, occurring among human beings. And it is not that there are cities and suburbs among bees, but rather

the hives, the hexagonal cells, and the works of the bees, and the succession of these among them, exist for the sake of human beings, who have great need of honey both for the healing of afflicted bodies and as pure nourishment. But the actions carried out by the bees against the drones are not to be compared to the judgments against the idle and the wicked in human cities, nor to the judgments against

...their punishments. But, as I said before, while nature is to be admired in these things, the human being — who is capable of reasoning about all things and ordering all things, since he cooperates with providence — is to be esteemed as accomplishing not only the works of God's providence but also his own. Now Celsus, having spoken about bees, in order to belittle, as far as he is able, not only us Christians

but also the cities, constitutions, governments, and leadership of all human beings, and the wars fought for their homelands, next proceeds to deliver a eulogy of ants, so that by this praise of them he may, in his account of the ants, cast down the human management of provisions as amounting to nothing more than the irrational providence he supposes exists among the ants — and so demolish, by the argument, mankind's foresight in storing up food for winter.

For he thinks it no greater than the irrational providence found among the ants. And what simpler people, who do not know how to discern the nature of all things, would Celsus not turn away, so far as it lies in his power, from helping those burdened by loads and sharing in their labors, when he says of ants that they take hold of one another's burdens whenever they see one of their number

struggling? For the one who needs instruction through reason, and does not grasp it at all, will say: since, then, we differ in no way from ants, and yet we help those who struggle under carrying the heaviest loads, why do we do such a thing pointlessly? And the ants, since they are in fact irrational creatures, would not be puffed up to think highly of themselves on account of their works being compared to those of human beings —

but human beings, who are able to hear this by means of reason, learn in what way their sense of fellowship is being cheapened. They would be harmed, so far as it depends on Celsus and his arguments, since he does not see that, wishing to turn away his readers from Christianity, he is also turning away, from those who are not Christians, their compassion toward those who carry the heaviest of burdens. He ought,

if indeed he were even a philosopher with a feeling for fellowship, not only to refrain from destroying, along with Christianity, what is useful among human beings, but also to cooperate, if it were possible, with the good things common to Christianity toward the rest of mankind. And if the ants also bite off the sprouts of the seeds they store away, so that they do not sprout, but remain throughout the year as food for them, this is not to be supposed the effect of reasoning in ants,

but of all-mothering nature, which has ordered even the irrational creatures in such a way as to leave out not even the smallest thing, bearing not the slightest trace of reason derived from nature — unless, then, Celsus wishes covertly through these examples (for indeed in many things he wishes to play the Platonist) to suggest that every soul is of the same kind, and that the soul of a human being differs in no way from that of ants and

of bees — which would be the view of one who drags the soul down from the vaults of heaven, not only to the human body but also to the rest of creatures. But Christians will not be persuaded of this, holding beforehand that the human soul has come into being "according to the image" of God, and seeing that a nature fashioned "according to the image" of God cannot possibly have its features utterly effaced, and made to serve as the image of others...

I do not know whose images he thinks they have come to be in the case of the irrational animals. But since he says that living ants also set apart a certain place for their dead, and that this is for them an ancestral burial ground, it must be said that the more praises he heaps upon the irrational animals, the more — even against his will — he magnifies the achievement of the reason that arranged all things, and displays the shrewdness present in human beings,

which is able to bring under its account, by means of reason, even the advantages found in the nature of irrational creatures. (But why do I speak of "irrational" creatures at all,) since Celsus does not even think that the things called irrational by the common notions of all people are actually irrational? Certainly the man who professed to speak about nature as a whole, and who boasted of truth in the very title of his book, does not consider even ants to be irrational. For he says

the following about ants, as though they conversed with one another: "And indeed, when they meet one another, they converse, which is why they do not even lose their way; therefore among them there is a completion of reasoned speech, and common notions of certain universal things, and voice, and both the objects referred to and the things signified." For to converse with another occurs by means of a voice that makes clear some signified thing. And often, too, concerning things called

actual, reporting on them — and to say that these things too are present among ants, how could this not be the most laughable of all things? And he is not ashamed, in going on to add to this — so that he might display to those who come after him the indecency of his own doctrines — saying: "Come then, if someone were to look down from heaven upon the earth, what difference would he suppose there to be between the things done by us and the things done by ants and"

bees? He who, according to Celsus's own supposition, looks down from heaven upon earth at the things done by human beings and the things done by ants — does he indeed perceive the bodies of humans and of ants, but fail to discern the rational governing faculty that is moved by reasoning, and again, on the other hand, the irrational governing faculty that is moved irrationally by impulse and imagination, together with a certain natural underlying constitution?

But it is absurd that the one looking down from heaven upon the things on earth should wish to discern the bodies of humans and of ants from so great a distance, and yet not much rather see the natures of their governing faculties and the source of their impulses, whether rational or irrational. And if he once sees the source of all impulses, it is clear that he would also perceive the difference and the superiority of the human being, not

only over ants but also over elephants. For the one who looks down from heaven, in the case of the irrational animals — even if their bodies are large — will see no other governing principle than, so to call it, irrationality; but in the case of rational beings he will see the reason common to human beings in relation to things divine and heavenly, and perhaps even God himself who is over all,

This is the reason the human being is said to have come to be "according to the image" of God; for his Word is the "image" of him who presides as God over the universe. Next after these things, as though striving to bring the human race down still further and to make it like the irrational animals, and wishing to leave out nothing among the things recorded of irrational animals that displays their superiority, he says that even the practices of sorcery

in some of the irrational animals, so that human beings should not take special pride in this, nor wish to hold their superiority over the irrational animals. And he says this: "But if human beings pride themselves on sorcery, in this respect too serpents and eagles are wiser: at any rate they know many antidotes and remedies against harm, and indeed the powers of certain stones for the preservation of their young."

whatever of these humans happen upon, they consider a marvelous possession. Now, in the first place, I do not know how he came to call the animals' experience—or some natural apprehension—regarding natural antidotes "sorcery"; for the term "sorcery" is worn smooth from being applied elsewhere, unless perhaps, as an Epicurean, he wishes covertly to slander every use of such things as lying within the profession

of sorcerers. Still, let it be granted to him that human beings pride themselves greatly on the knowledge of these things, whether they are sorcerers or not. How is it that in this respect serpents are wiser than human beings, using fennel for sharpness of sight and swiftness of movement—grasping this by nature alone, not from reasoning but from their very constitution? Whereas human beings do not come to

such a thing in the same way as serpents do, from bare nature; rather, in part from experience, in part from reasoning, and sometimes from calculation and according to knowledge. Likewise, if eagles too, for the preservation of the nestlings in their nest, find the so-called eagle-stone and bring it to the nest, on what basis is it that eagles are wise, and wiser than human beings, who by experience

find the natural aid given to eagles, and who employ it through reasoning and with understanding? But let it be granted that other antidotes too are known by animals. What then does this have to do with its not being nature but reason that discovers these things among the animals? For if it were reason that discovered them, this one particular thing alone would not be found fixed and unchanging only among serpents; there would also be a second and

a third, and something else in the eagle, and so on among the rest of the animals. But there would be as many as there are among human beings. As it is, however, it is plain from the fact that the remedies incline in a fixed and unchanging way toward the particular nature of each animal, that there is in them no wisdom or reason, but a certain natural constitution directed toward such ends for the preservation of the animals, brought about by Reason.

And yet, if I wished to meet Celsus head-on on these very points, I would have used a saying of Solomon from the Proverbs, which runs thus: "Four things are least upon the earth, and yet they surpass the wise in wisdom: the ants, a folk without strength, who make ready their food in summer; and the rock badgers,

a people not mighty, who make their houses in the rocks; the locust has no king, yet it marches out in good order at a single command; and the lizard, supporting itself with its hands, and easily caught, yet dwells in the fortresses of a king." But I do not employ these as clear-cut statements; rather, in keeping with the title—for the book is entitled Proverbs—I seek them out as riddles. For it is the custom of these men to say one thing that is plain on its face, but to mean another

speaking in a hidden sense, is divided into many kinds, one of which is proverbs. That is why it is written in our Gospels that our Savior said: "These things I have told you by way of proverbs; an hour comes when I shall no longer speak to you in proverbs." So it is not the ants perceived by the senses who are wiser and "wiser than the wise," but rather those pointed to as under the guise of proverbs. Thus

one must also speak concerning the rest of the animals. But Celsus thinks that the books of the Jews and Christians are entirely simple and unsophisticated, and supposes that those who allegorize them do so by doing violence to the intention of those who wrote them. Let Celsus, then, be refuted on these points too, since he slanders us in vain; and let his argument about serpents and eagles also be refuted, in which he declared them to be

wiser than human beings. And wishing, at still greater length, to show that conceptions concerning the divine are not the exclusive privilege of the human race among all mortal creatures, but to declare that some of the irrational animals too have understanding of God—concerning whom such disagreements have arisen even among the sharpest-minded people everywhere, both Greeks and barbarians—he says that if, because

a human being has grasped a conception of the divine, he is thought to surpass the rest of the animals, let those who say this know that many of the other animals will lay claim to this as well, and quite reasonably; for what could one call more divine than foreknowing and foretelling what is to come? This, then, is what human beings learn from birds above all, and from the other animals as well; and all who grasp the meaning of their signals

are diviners. But if birds, then, and whatever other animals are prophetic, foreknowing from God and teaching us through signs, then they seem to that same degree to be by nature closer to communion with the divine, and to be wiser and more beloved of God. And the intelligent among human beings say that these creatures too have communion with the divine—evidently more sacred than ours—and that they themselves somehow recognize what is said and demonstrate by their actions that

they do recognize it, whenever, having foretold—because the birds had indicated—that they would go somewhere and do this or that, they then show them having gone there and doing exactly what they had foretold. And nothing seems more true to its word or more trustworthy toward the divine than elephants, entirely, I suppose, because they possess knowledge of it. Observe, in these matters, how many questions those who practice philosophy dispute over - and not the Greeks alone, but also

those among the barbarians—whether they discovered these things themselves or learned them from certain demons—concerning omens and the other animals from which certain forms of divination are said to occur for human beings; yet he snatches these up and presents them as though they were agreed upon. For, first, it has been disputed whether there is any art of augury, and, in general, whether divination through animals exists at all or not; and second, among those who have accepted that divination through

birds does exist, there is no agreement on the cause of the manner of the divination; since some say that the movements occur in the animals from certain demons or prophetic gods—in birds, movements into various flights and various cries, in the other animals, movements of this sort or that—while others say that their souls are more divine and, for this purpose, well suited,

which is most implausible. Celsus, then, since through what he had set out he wished to show that irrational animals surpass human beings in divinity and wisdom, should first have established at greater length, and with more evidence, that such divination actually exists, and after that to have demonstrated the defense more clearly, and to have refuted, in demonstrative fashion, the arguments of those who deny such divinations, and to have overturned, in demonstrative fashion, the arguments of those who said that

the movements toward divination in animals come from daemons or gods, and after this to have established that irrational creatures possess a soul more divine than ours. For in that way, in response to his persuasive claims, once he had displayed a philosophical command of such weighty matters, we would have opposed him as far as we were able - overturning, on the one hand, the claim that irrational animals are wiser than human beings, and disproving, on the other, that

it has more sacred conceptions of the divine than we do, and that its members hold certain sacred communications with one another. But as things stand, the man who accuses us of believing in the God over all demands that we believe that the souls of birds hold conceptions more divine and more distinct than those of human beings. And if this is true, birds have more distinct conceptions of God than Celsus does; and it is no wonder if

than Celsus, who debases the human being to such a degree. But indeed, so far as Celsus is concerned, the birds hold greater and more divine conceptions - I do not say than we Christians, or than the Jews who share the very same scriptures we do, but even than the theologians found among the Greeks - for these too were merely human. On Celsus's reckoning, then, the race of so-called divinatory birds has grasped the nature of the divine more fully

than Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. And indeed we ought to enroll the birds as instructors of us, so that, just as on Celsus's supposition they teach us future events by divination, so too they might free human beings from doubting about the divine, handing down the distinct conception of it which they have grasped. Celsus, then, is being consistent, since he holds that birds surpass

human beings, in using birds as his teachers, and none of those who philosophized among the Greeks so highly. But we must say a few things, out of many, in reply to what has been proposed, refuting this ungrateful false opinion held against the one who made him: for Celsus too, being "a human being held in honor, did not understand," and therefore was not even "compared" with birds and the remaining nonrational creatures that he supposes to be capable of divination,

but instead, yielding the first place to those animals, has ranked himself below the Egyptians, who worship irrational animals as gods - so far as it depends on him, he has ranked the whole human race too, as thinking worse and less about the divine than irrational animals do. Let it first be asked, then, whether the divination through birds and the rest of the animals believed to be divinatory actually exists

or does not exist. For the argument attempted on either side is not to be despised: at one point deterring us from accepting such a thing, so that the rational being should not, abandoning the oracles of daemons, resort to birds instead; at another point establishing, through evidence attested by many, that many escaped the gravest dangers by trusting divination through birds. For the present, however

Let it be granted that augury is a real thing, so that in this way too I may show those who have already been won over that even when this is granted, the superiority of the human being over the irrational animals — even over the animals capable of divination themselves — is great and in no way comparable to theirs. It must be said, then, that if there really was in them some divine nature foreknowing future events, and so abundantly rich in it that out of its surplus

it could also reveal what was to come to any human being who wished it, then clearly they would have known long beforehand the things concerning themselves; and knowing the things concerning themselves, they would have taken care not to fly up over this particular place, where men had set snares and nets against them, or where archers, using them as targets, shot arrows at them as they flew. In every case, if eagles had foreknowledge of the plot against their

nestlings — whether from snakes climbing up to them and destroying them, or from certain men taking the young either for sport or for some other use and care — they would not have nested where they were going to be plotted against; and in short, not one of these animals would ever have been caught by men, seeing that it was more divine and wiser than men. But even if birds of omen

fight with birds of omen — and, as Celsus says, the birds skilled in divination and the other irrational animals, possessing a divine nature and notions of the divine and foreknowledge of the future, foretold such things to others — then neither would Homer's sparrow have nested where a serpent was going to make her and her young vanish, nor would the serpent, in the same poet, have failed to guard itself

against being seized by the eagle. For Homer, that wonder in poetry, says the following about the first case: 'There a great sign appeared: a serpent, blood-red on its back, terrible, which the Olympian himself sent up into the light, darting out from beneath the altar and rushing to the plane tree. There were the nestlings of the sparrow, helpless young, cowering beneath the leaves on the topmost branch, eight of them. And the mother, who had borne the young, was the ninth. There

he pitiably devoured them as they squealed, while the mother fluttered about, mourning for her dear young; and coiling himself, he seized her by the wing as she shrieked around him. But when he had eaten the young along with the sparrow herself, the god who had revealed him made him a marked sign; for the son of crooked-counseling Cronos turned him to stone. And we, standing by, marveled at what had come to pass. So then, when these dread portents of the gods intruded upon

the hecatombs — and concerning the second case, that a bird came upon them as they longed to cross, a high-flying eagle, driving the host back on the left, carrying in its talons a blood-red serpent, monstrous, still alive and struggling; it had not yet forgotten its fighting spirit, for it struck the one holding it on the breast beside the neck, twisting back, and the eagle let it fall from itself to the ground, in pain from the wounds, and cast it down in the midst of the throng; and it itself

flew off screeching on the blasts of the wind. And the Trojans shuddered when they saw the writhing serpent lying in their midst, a portent of aegis-bearing Zeus. Was the eagle, then, skilled in divination, while the serpent — since diviners of birds also make use of this creature — was not skilled in divination? And further, since the practice of casting lots is easily refuted, would it not likewise be refuted that both are skilled in divination? Surely not

For being a serpent gifted with divination, did it not guard itself against suffering this at the hands of the eagle? And one could find countless other examples of this kind, showing that it is not that the animals themselves possess a divinatory soul in themselves; rather, in the view of the poet and of most men, the Olympian himself came bringing light, while according to a certain sign Apollo too makes use of a messenger.

a hawk; for the "kirkos" is said to be "Apollo's swift messenger." But according to us, it is certain base spirits, or, to give them a name, Titanic or gigantic ones, that have become impious toward what is truly divine and toward the angels in heaven, and having fallen from heaven, now wallow on earth about the grosser and unclean kinds of bodies, possessing a certain power of foresight concerning things to come, inasmuch as

they happen to be stripped of earthly bodies, and busy themselves about such work, wishing to steer the race of men aside from the true God, they insinuate themselves into the more rapacious and savage of the animals, and others more cunning still, and set them in motion toward whatever they wish, whenever they wish; or else they turn the imaginations of such animals toward particular flights and movements of this kind, so that men, being caught

by the divination that operates through irrational animals, might not seek the God who encompasses the universe, nor examine pure piety toward God, but might fall in their reasoning to the level of the earth, and to birds and serpents, and further foxes and wolves. For indeed it has been observed by those skilled in these matters that the clearer foreknowledges come about through such animals, since

the demons are not able to work these things to the same degree in the tamer animals as they are able to in these, on account of a certain likeness to their own wickedness—not that wickedness is present, as it were, in such animals, but something resembling wickedness that enables the demons to act through these particular creatures. For this reason, if I have admired anything else about Moses, I would declare this too worthy of admiration: that having discerned the differing natures of animals, whether

he learned about them and about the demons akin to each animal from God, or whether he himself, ascending by wisdom, discovered this, in his ordinance concerning animals he pronounced unclean all the creatures which the Egyptians and other peoples regard as oracular, while for the most part those that are not of this kind he declared clean. And among the unclean animals in Moses are the wolf and the fox

and the serpent, the eagle and the hawk, and creatures like these; and for the most part you would find these creatures cited as instances of the worst things both in the law and among the prophets alike, and never is the wolf or the fox named in connection with anything good. It seems, then, that there is a certain kinship between each kind of demon and each kind of animal,

and just as among men some men are stronger than other men, not entirely on account of character, in the same way demons would be more powerful than other demons among themselves; and some of these, making use of these particular animals to deceive men according to the will of the one called in our writings "the ruler of this age," while others make their disclosures through another kind of sign, and

See how impure demons are, to such a degree that even weasels are taken by some people as a means of revealing future events. Judge for yourself which is better to accept: that the God over all and his Son move the birds and the other animals toward divination, or that those who move such animals, and not

in the presence of human beings, are base demons and, as our sacred writings named them, "unclean." But if the soul of birds is divine because future events are foretold through them, how is it not all the more true — wherever omens are taken from human beings — that we should say the soul of those through whom the omens are heard is divine? Divine, then, according to such people, was

the "grinding-woman" in Homer, who said of the suitors: "May they now sup here for the last and final time." And she was divine; but was Odysseus, so great a man, the friend of Homer's Athena, not divine? Yet, understanding the omen spoken by the divine grinding-woman, he rejoiced, as the poet says: "and godly Odysseus rejoiced at the omen." Now see further, whether the

birds have a divine soul and perceive God — or, as Celsus names them, the gods — then clearly we too, when we sneeze, sneeze because of some divinity within us and some power of divination concerning our soul. For this too is attested by many; hence the poet also says: "and he sneezed at the very moment of the prayer." Hence too Penelope says:

"Do you not see that my son sneezed at your words?" But what is truly divine, for knowledge concerning future things, makes use neither of irrational animals nor of ordinary human beings, but of the most sacred and purest souls of men, whom it inspires and makes prophets. For this reason, if anything else is said marvelously in the law of Moses, such things too should be classed among matters of this kind:

"You shall not divine by omens nor watch for signs among birds," and elsewhere: "For the nations whom the Lord your God will destroy before you listen to omens and divinations; but the Lord your God has not allowed this to you"; then next it says: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." And when God once wished, through a diviner of birds, to turn

the man away from the practice of augury, he made a spirit within that diviner of birds say: "For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel; in due season it will be told to Jacob and to Israel what God will accomplish." Knowing these things, then, and others similar to them, we wish to keep the commandment spoken mystically: "Keep your heart with all vigilance," so that none of the

demons may set foot upon our governing faculty, nor may any hostile spirit turn our imaginative faculty toward what it wishes. And it is our prayer that, within our hearts, there may shine the "illumination that comes from knowing God's glory," while God's Spirit takes up residence in our imaginative faculty and shapes within us the things of God; for it is written, "those who are guided by God's Spirit are God's own sons." But it is necessary to know

That foreknowledge of future things is not in every case something divine: in itself it is a neutral thing, and it falls to base people and to decent ones alike. Physicians, at any rate, foreknow certain things from medical skill, even if they happen to be base in character; and pilots do likewise. Even if they happen to be depraved, they foreknow signs and the violence of winds and shifts in the surrounding air, from a certain experience and observation.

And surely no one will say, on that account, that they are divine, if they happen to be depraved in character. So what is said in Celsus is false, namely: what could one call more divine than foreknowing and foretelling future things? And it is also false that many of the animals lay claim to a divine understanding; for none of the irrational creatures has any understanding of God.

It is also false that the irrational animals are nearer to converse with the divine; since even among human beings, those who are still base, however far they may advance, are far from converse with the divine. So it is only those who are truly wise and unfeignedly pious who are nearer to converse with the divine — such as our prophets and Moses are. To him, on account of his great purity, the word bore witness when it said: "Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the rest shall not draw near."

How is it not impious for the very man who accuses us of impiety to say that the irrational animals are not only wiser than human nature but also more beloved of God? And who would not be repelled, on hearing a man say that the serpent and the fox and the wolf

and the eagle and the hawk are more beloved of God than human nature? It follows for him to say that, if these animals are more beloved of God than human beings, then clearly Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, and the theologians he praised shortly before are also less beloved of God than these animals. And one might well pray for him, saying: if these animals are indeed more beloved of God

than human beings, then may you come to share in their favor with God, and grow to resemble those among your contemporaries who stand higher still in God's regard. And let him not suppose that this is a curse; for who would not pray to become altogether like those whom he believes to be more beloved of God, so that he too might become beloved of God as they are? Wishing the converse of the irrational animals to be more sacred than ours, Celsus

does not entrust this account to just anyone, but to the intelligent. And the truly intelligent are, in reality, the virtuous, for no base person is intelligent. He speaks, then, in this manner: the intelligent among human beings say that there is also converse with those creatures — clearly more sacred than ours — and that they themselves somehow recognize what is said and show by their deeds that they are not ignorant of it, whenever, after foretelling

that the birds said they would go somewhere and do this or that, they show them, having gone there, doing what they had already foretold. In truth, however, no intelligent person has recorded any such thing, and no wise person has said that the converse of irrational animals is more sacred than that of human beings. But if we examine the matter to test the consistency of Celsus's argument, it is clear that...

the conversations of irrational animals are more sacred than the dignified discourses of Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Pherecydes, and the philosophers. This is on its face not only absurd but utterly out of place. But even if we were to grant that some people, from the meaningless sound of birds, have learned that the birds are going off somewhere and will do this or that, and that this

foretells something, we will say that this too has been made known to human beings by the demons symbolically, with a view to deceiving humanity and dragging its mind down from heaven and God to earth and to things still lower. I do not know how Celsus also came to hear of an oath of elephants, and that these creatures are more faithful toward the divine than we are and have knowledge

of God. For I myself know many marvelous things reported about the nature of this animal and about its gentleness, but I am not aware that any oath of elephants has been spoken of by anyone — unless perhaps he has given the name of "oath-keeping" to the gentleness they show and to the kind of agreement they seem to form with human beings once tamed, whereby they are said to keep faith with them. But this too is false. For even if

rarely, it is nonetheless recorded that after their apparent gentleness elephants have turned savage against men (and committed murders), and for this reason have been condemned to be killed as no longer useful. Since after this he goes on, as he supposes, to make the case for storks being holier than mankind, drawing on what is reported about this creature — that it returns the care given it and brings food to its parents in return — it must be said that

storks do this not from any reasoned understanding of duty, nor from calculation, but from nature — nature that formed them wishing to set forth, in an irrational animal, an example capable of putting human beings to shame regarding the repayment of gratitude to their parents. But if Celsus knew how much it differs to do these things by reason from doing them irrationally and by mere natural instinct, he would not have called

storks more pious than human beings. Further, Celsus, as though standing up for the piety of irrational animals, brings forward the Arabian creature, the phoenix, which after many years visits Egypt bearing its dead father, wrapped inside a globe of myrrh, and sets it down where the sanctuary of the sun stands. This too has been recorded, but it is possible, if indeed it is true, that

this very thing is also natural, since divine providence has been generous enough to display to human beings, even in the differences among animals, the variety of the world's constitution extending even to the birds — and it has caused to exist a certain "only-begotten" creature, so that this too might bring about wonder not at the animal but at the one who made it. Since, then, upon all this Celsus adds the statement:

"not all things, then, have been made for man, any more than for lion or eagle or dolphin, but so that this world, as the complete and perfect work of God, might come to be out of all things together. For this reason all things have been measured out, not in relation to one another, but, except as incidental, in relation to the whole. And God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons it, nor does it grow worse,"

God does not turn back to himself over time, nor does he grow angry for the sake of human beings, any more than for monkeys or mice; nor does he threaten these creatures, each of which has received its own allotted portion in turn. Come, let us answer this, even if briefly. I think I have shown from what has already been said how all things have been made for the sake of man and of every rational being; for it is chiefly on account of the rational

living being that all things have been fashioned. Let Celsus, then, say that this is not so for man, any more than for the lion or the other creatures he names; but we will say: the Creator did not make these things for the lion, nor for the eagle, nor for the dolphin, but everything was made for the sake of the rational living being, and so that this world, as being a work of God, might become whole and complete out of all its parts. For to this

one must give assent, as a claim well stated. And God cares not, as Celsus supposes, for the whole alone, but beyond the whole, especially for every rational being. And providence will never abandon the whole, for it administers it—even if some part of the whole grows worse because the rational part in it sins—so as to purge that part and, in time, turn the whole back to himself. But he is not

angry for the sake of monkeys or of mice; rather, upon human beings, since they have transgressed the natural starting-points given them, he brings judgment and punishment, and he threatens them through the prophets and through the Savior who came to dwell among the whole human race—so that through this threat those who listen might be turned back, while those who disregard the words that call them to turn might pay the penalties they deserve, penalties which it is fitting for God to impose according to

his own will, for the benefit of the whole, upon those who need such demanding care and correction. But since the fourth volume has now reached an adequate length, let us bring our discussion to a close at this point. And may it be granted by God, through his Son — who is himself God, the Word and Wisdom, Truth and Righteousness, and everything else the sacred scriptures call him when they speak theologically of him,

that we may also begin the fifth volume for the benefit of those who will read it, and bring that one too to a good conclusion, together with the coming of his Word into our soul.

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