Книга вторая

I. We ended the first book of our objections to the work of Celsus, entitled “The True Word,” with a review of the speech that he conducted against Jesus under the guise of a Jew. Since this book has already grown too large in its volume, then after it we decide to present this second book, in which we want to consider the accusations that he directs against those who from Judaism turned to faith in Jesus. And if he really liked to put his thoughts into the mouths of the people he brought out, then we, for our part, first of all find it strange that he forces his Jew to turn not at all to those who converted from paganism, but to those who came to faith from Judaism. Meanwhile, his speech would have gained more credibility and would have been more likely if only it had been conducted against us 182 . He, who boasts of his omniscience, actually turns out to be unfamiliar with the techniques that the persons he has identified should use in their speeches. So, let us listen to what he has to say to believers who have converted from Judaism? “They,” he says, “seduced by Jesus and deceived by Him in a completely clownish way (πάνυ γελοίως), left the domestic law and took a different name and began to live a different life.” But he did not notice that the Jews, having turned to faith in Jesus, did not abandon the law of their fathers. They continue to live according to its prescriptions and even received their name from the poverty of the law regarding (New Testament) expectations 183. Ebion precisely means poor among the Jews, and those Jews who recognize Jesus as the Christ began to be called Ebionites. Peter himself for a long time apparently observed the Jewish customs prescribed by the law of Moses, until he was taught by Jesus to rise from the literal to the spiritual understanding of the law. We see this from the “Acts of the Apostles.” “The next day” after the Angel had appeared to Cornelius and persuaded him to send a message to Joppa to Simon, called Peter, “Peter, about the sixth hour, went up to the top of the house to pray. And he felt hungry and wanted to eat. While they were preparing, he went into a frenzy and sees the open sky and a certain vessel descending towards it, like a large canvas, tied at the four corners and lowered to the ground; in it were all four-legged creatures of the earth, animals, reptiles and birds of the air. And a voice came to him: Arise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said: No, Lord, I have never eaten anything bad or unclean. Then another time a voice came to him: What God has cleansed, do not consider unclean” (Acts 10:9-15). Pay attention to the way in which Peter is presented here as a man who still zealously observes Jewish customs regarding clean and unclean animals. From the following words it is clear that a special vision was needed so that Peter could make Cornelius, a non-Israelite in the flesh, as well as those who were with Cornelius, partakers of the doctrine of faith. Peter was still a Jew and lived according to Jewish traditions and therefore despised those who stood outside Judaism. And Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians testifies that Peter, out of fear of the Jews, at the time when James came to him 185, stopped eating with the pagans and separated from them, “fearing the circumcision” (Galatians 2:12). The rest of the Jews and Barnabas did the same. It was, of course, natural that those sent to the circumcision did not depart from the customs of the Jews even at the moment when they, “honored as pillars, gave me” (Paul) “and Barnabas the hand of fellowship,” so that they themselves could go to the circumcision, while they were supposed to preach the gospel to the Gentiles 186. And how can it be said that these 187, preaching the gospel (the Gospel) to the circumcision, kept away from the Gentiles and kept away from them, since Paul himself “was a Jew for the Jews, in order to win the Jews”? (1 Cor. 9:20) That is why, as stated in the Acts of the Apostles, he even brought an offering to the altar to convince the Jews that he was not an apostate of the law (Acts 21:26). If Celsus had known all this, he would not have allowed his Jew to say the following words to those who had converted from Judaism: “What prompted you, citizens, to leave the laws of your fatherland and to be carried away by Him against whom we were just speaking - why did you allow Him to deceive you in the most clownish way and left us, taking a different name, starting a different life?” II. But since we started talking about Peter and those Apostles who proclaimed Christianity among the circumcision, then, I think, it would not be superfluous to cite and explain the sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of John. The following words of Jesus are recorded there: “I still have much to say to you, but you cannot bear it now. When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears, He will speak” (John 16:12–13). The question arises, what are these “many” things that Jesus wanted to say to his disciples, but which they could not yet “contain” then. I answer: since the Apostles were Jews and were brought up on a literal understanding of the law, then Jesus, perhaps, had to tell them what exactly the true law is, what the “shadows of heaven” are (cf. Heb. 8:5) - things that Jewish worship pointed to in the form of “an image and a shadow”, and what these “future good things” are (Heb. 10:1), which were represented by the law of food and drink, holidays, new moons and Sabbaths (Col. 2:16). And in general there were many things that He had to tell them about. He knew that it was very difficult to remove from the soul opinions (δόγματα), which had entered into it almost from the very day of birth, strengthened with the onset of manhood, and laid firm confidence in the hearts of those who received them - the confidence that these opinions are of Divine origin and that it would be godlessness to leave them. He saw that it was especially difficult to gain faith from such people if they were told that these things, in comparison with the perfect knowledge of Christ, that is, the truth, should be condemned as “dirty and vanity” (Phil. 3:8). That is why He wanted to wait for this more convenient time, which was the time after His suffering and Resurrection. And in fact, this help, provided to people prematurely - help that they could not yet accept, could have a detrimental effect on their faith in Jesus, in which they could only recognize in Him the Christ and the Son of the living God. And note: doesn’t all this (reasoning) constitute a completely correct explanation of the following words (Jesus): “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear it now” (John 16:12). Indeed, the Law contains much that should be understood and interpreted in a spiritual sense; but the disciples who were born and raised among the Jews were not yet capable of “accommodating” those (spiritual truths). Since the Jewish rites had only a transformative meaning, and the truth itself was what the Holy Spirit had to teach the disciples, then in view of this, as I think, the following words were added: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13) - into all truth, that is, into a true understanding - as if he were saying so - of those things with which you think to show true service to God, whereas in them you have only prototypes. This promise of Jesus was truly fulfilled when the “Spirit of truth” 188 descended on Peter and, pointing to the four-legged and creeping animals of the earth and the birds of the air, addressed him with the following speech: “Arise, Peter, kill and eat.” And He came upon Peter when he was still so superstitious that in response to this Divine saying he said: “No, Lord, I have never eaten anything common or unclean” (Acts 10:14). It was then that (the Holy Spirit) taught him the true and spiritual understanding of the Law of Food with the words: “What God has purified, you do not consider unclean” (Acts 10:15). After this vision, the “Spirit of truth” guided Peter “into all truth” (John 16:13) and taught him many things that he could not comprehend when Jesus was still with him in the flesh. However, we will have another opportunity to discuss all this, when we will talk about those who adhere to the literal understanding of the Mosaic Law. III. Now we only want to show the ignorance of Celsus, who forces his Jew to ask the following question to his own fellow Israelis who have turned to faith in Jesus: “Why did you think of leaving the law of your fathers?” etc. But how did those who reproach people who do not want to listen to the law fall away from the law of their fathers, and who say this: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written: Abraham had two sons” (Galatians 4:21–22), and so on to words that must be understood in the sense of allegory 189. How is it that those who constantly cherish the memory of it in their mouths have fallen away from the law of their fathers and ask: “Isn’t this what the law also says? For in the Law of Moses it is written: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” Does God care about oxen? Or, of course, is it said for us? Thus, it is written for us” (1 Cor. 9:8–10; cf. Deut. 25:4) and so on. The Jew, according to Celsus, mixes all this up, when how could he have more confidence if he began to say at least this: some of you left your former customs because you connected with them a moral and transformative meaning, and some, on the contrary, giving a spiritual explanation to the customs of your fathers - as you yourself divulge about this - at the same time firmly adhere to them; some do not even want to think about spiritual explanation and are content with only the literal meaning, although at the same time they recognize Jesus as the one whom the prophets proclaimed, and observe the law of Moses, in accordance with the traditions of the fathers. And where in this regard could such a depth of research come from Celsus, who in his further speech treats about godless sects that have absolutely nothing in common with Jesus, who deny even the Being of the Creator, and at the same time does not know the Israelis who believe in Jesus and at the same time remain admirers of the Law of the Fathers? He evidently had no desire to examine impartially and comprehensively everything that concerned the matter, and to recognize any grain of truth that he might discover; on the contrary, like an enemy, imbued solely with the desire to destroy everything he heard, he presented all his writings. IV. The Jew of Celsus further addresses those from among the Jewish people who believed in Jesus with the following objection. “Even so recently, just at the moment when we were punishing this (Jesus) who deceived you, you fell away from the Law of the Fathers.” In these words, as we have already shown, there is no precision at all; but the next expression seems stronger to me. He continues: “How is it that you, having the beginning of your faith in our shrines, having perfected them, at the same time treat them with contempt, while, in fact, you cannot indicate any other beginning for your teaching other than our Law?” Yes, indeed, the Mosaic shrines and prophetic writings constitute the introduction and preparation for Christianity; and after entering into it in the matter of researching and understanding those (Mosaic shrines and prophetic writings), everyone introduced (to Christianity) makes success if only he tries to penetrate into the revelation of the mystery, which was hidden from eternal times and was only now revealed in the prophetic writings and at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:24). Therefore, it is not true that, as you say, they despised the provisions of the law, since they even took a step forward (in its knowledge); on the contrary, they gave him even greater honor, because at the same time they discovered what the deepest meaning lies in the wise and hidden words of that scripture, which the Jews did not understand, because they touched more only on its appearance, on only the letter of its legends. And what is strange in recognizing the position that the law (of Moses) constitutes the beginning of our teaching, that is, the Gospel? Our Lord Himself addressed those who did not believe in Him with these words: “If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; because he wrote about Me. If you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:46–47). And one of the Evangelists, namely Mark, also says: “the beginning of the Gospel is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets: “Behold, I am sending My angel before You, who will prepare Your way before You” (Mk. 1:1-2; cf. Malach. 3:1; Is. 40:3). In these words he shows that the beginning of the Gospel is dated to the writings of the Jews. So, how can what is said further by the Jew, derived by Celsus, testify against us: “If anyone really predicted to you that the Son of God should come to people, it was a prophet who belongs to us and was sent from our God.” How can all this relate to the accusation of Christianity if John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew? And from the fact that he was a Jew, it does not at all follow that every believer who came to the (Christian) teaching from among the pagans or from among Judaism must necessarily observe the Mosaic Law in its literal meaning. V. After this, Celsus again, for the second time, says of Jesus that “He was punished by the Jews for His crimes.” But we have already answered this objection earlier, and therefore we will not repeat our defense, being content with what was said earlier. Then his Jew deprives all of our teaching about the resurrection of the dead, about the judgment of God, about the glorification of the righteous and about the fire prepared for the wicked as a worthless remnant of antiquity (ἕωλα).” Moreover, he plans to overthrow Christianity with the statement that “Christians allegedly were unable to say anything new in all these points (of their teaching.” To this we must say that our Jesus, when he saw that the life of the Jews did not agree with the requirements of the prophetic teachings, in the most precise form expressed the teaching that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given” (Matthew 21:43) to people from paganism. We can actually see that the Jews now feel inclined exclusively to fables and fictions, because they do not have the light leading to the comprehension of the Scriptures; Meanwhile, Christians possess the truth, which could elevate and elevate the soul and mind of a person, they possess the consciousness that they are members of the kingdom - not an earthly kingdom, which was the case with the Jews, but a heavenly one (Phil. 3:20). This (consciousness) is especially clearly revealed in those who contemplate the greatness of the thoughts contained in the law and the prophets, and this greatness can also be revealed to others. VI. Suppose that Jesus observed all the customs of the Jews, not excluding those that accompany their sacrifices, but even then is there any obstacle to believing in Him as the Son of God? Jesus is the Son of the same God who gave the law and sent the prophets. And we, who are members of the church, did not break the law, but rejected only Jewish fables, being wise and brought up on the mysterious contemplation (μυστικῇ θεωρίᾳ) of the law and the prophets. And the prophets themselves taught us that just an external simple story about events, just one textual and literal expression of the law does not exhaust its entire meaning, does not express the full comprehension of the truth. If they make an attempt to tell about the events, they accompany the story with the following words: “I will open my mouth in a parable, and utter fortune-telling from ancient times” (Ps. 77:2). The law, in their opinion, is unclear and incomprehensible without God’s help; therefore, calling for help, they say during prayer: “Open my eyes, and I will see the wonders of Your law” (Ps. 119:18). VII. Let them show us whether Jesus showed even a shadow of “self-praise” anywhere in His speeches. Is there any “arrogance” in His following words: “Learn from Me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls"? (Matthew 11:29) Is He really “arrogant” who, after the meal, took off His clothes in front of the disciples, and, taking a towel, girded Himself. Then he poured water into the laver and began to wash the feet of each of them and, in reproach to the one who did not want to expose his feet, he said the following words: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me” (John 13:2, 4–5:8)? Is there “arrogance” in the One who said: “And I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27)? Let them show whether He deceived anyone; Let them even draw the line between great and small lies and then present evidence that Jesus became a great deceiver. It is possible, of course, to direct the accusation against Jesus in another way. A lie is no more and no less a lie, like any lie; in the same way, truth is no more and no less truth, like any truth. And what were these wicked acts that Jesus committed? Jew of Celsus, show them to us! Was it really ungodly that He abandoned bodily circumcision, bodily Saturday, bodily holidays, bodily new moons, did not distinguish between clean and unclean and, instead of all this, directed his mind towards the law of God - a worthy, true and spiritual law, so that the one sent instead of Christ 190 could be able to become a Jew for the Jews, “in order to win the Jews, for those who were under the law” as one under the law, in order to win those under the law” (1 Cor. 9:20)? VIII. The Jew in Celsus goes on to say that “many others could turn out to be exactly the same as Jesus, especially for those who wish to be deceived.” But let him show us not “many,” not even a significant “minority,” but at least one such person who, with the same power as Jesus, could proclaim to the human race equally saving teachings and dogmas, could turn people from the abyss of sins (to virtue). The Jew of Celsus says that “this accusation is brought against the Jews by those who believe in Christ, because the Jews did not believe in Jesus as God.” But we have already discussed this objection above 191 and at the same time showed in what respect we consider Him God and why, on the other hand, we call Him man. “But how,” he continues to say further, “we, who proclaimed to all people that He would come from God who should punish the wicked, could subject Him to dishonor when He appeared?” It seems to me even unreasonable to answer this completely stupid question. After all, this is the same as saying: “How, having taught abstinence, could we sin against this virtue? How could we, being appointed guardians of justice, commit injustice?” If such a contradiction can be observed in people, then it means that it was completely natural from a human point of view that they accepted the predictions of the prophets about the coming Messiah in the form in which they themselves understood them, and at the same time did not believe in Him when, by the very fact of His coming, the said prophecies came to fulfillment. If we need to add another reason (unbelief) to this, then we, for our part, can say that even this reason was predicted by the prophets. Isaiah is very clear: “You will hear with your ears and not understand, and with your eyes you will see and not see. For the heart of this people has become hardened” (Isa. 6:9–10) and so on. Let them tell us what it was that the Jews, according to the words of the prophet, had to listen and see and at the same time not understand what they heard and not properly see what they saw. It is clear that they saw Jesus, but did not notice who exactly He was - they listened to Him, but did not recognize from His words the Divinity inherent in Him - that Divinity that transferred the guardianship (ἐπισκοπὴν) intended for the Jews to those who believe in Jesus from among the Gentiles. Indeed, one can see that the Jews, from the time Jesus came, were completely abandoned, they no longer possess anything that was previously considered sacred among them, they do not have any sign that could show the presence of any divinity among them. They no longer have prophets, there are no more miracles, while among Christians the traces of these latter have not disappeared to this day, they continue to perform miracles even greater than then; and if they want to trust us, then for our part we could say that even we saw (these miracles). “Why, in fact, continues the Jew of Celsus, do we act dishonorably with Him whom we proclaimed? Is it really just to receive greater punishments than other (nations)?” To this we must say: not only at the trial, in which we are convinced, the Jews will have to receive retribution for not believing in Jesus and causing Him suffering; they have now already suffered their punishment. In fact, where, besides the Jews alone, would there be a people who would be forced to flee from their own capital, from their own place where worship was performed according to the covenants of their fathers? They are the unfortunate people; They suffered misfortune not so much for those sins, of which they, of course, have many, but rather for those insolences that they committed against Jesus. IX. After this, the Jew says: “How could we consider this (Jesus) to be God, who, as was heard, did not fulfill anything that He promised to show, who, as soon as we exposed Him and found Him worthy of punishment, hid secretly, fled and then was captured in the most shameful manner, betrayed by those whom he called disciples? If He, he says, really were God, then it would hardly have been fitting for Him to flee: He would not have been captured and bound. And in any case, those who constantly communicated with Him, from whom He hid nothing, for whom He was a teacher, who considered Him the Savior, Son and Messenger of the Great God, would not have betrayed Him and betrayed Him.” To this we will give the following answer: and we also do not recognize that the body (σῶμα) of Jesus, visible at that time and subject to the senses, was God. And what do I say: body? Likewise, the soul (ψυχήν) (was not God) is the soul about which it is said: “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matthew 26:38). He who in the Books of the Prophets says: “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh” (Jer. 32:27) and “before Me there was no God, and after Me there will be no” (Isa. 43:10), - this, according to the Jews, is God Himself, who chose the soul and body of the prophet as an instrument. On the other hand, the Greeks also believed in the divinity of Him who says: I know the number of sand and sea space, And I understand the dumb and I hear the voiceless 193; Moreover, in their opinion, the mouth and ears of the Pythia served as an instrument for him. Like the Jews and Greeks, we also teach, affirming that God is the Word (John 1:1) and the Son of the God of all, saying in Jesus: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7), “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:51) and so on in the same way. So, we blame the Jews for not recognizing Jesus as God, although the prophets everywhere testified to Him as a great Power and God (θεὸν) in relation to God (τὸν θεὸν) and the Father of all things. After all, we are convinced that the Father addressed Him with the words that we read in the history of creation recorded by Moses: “Let there be light” and “let there be firmament” (Gen. 1:3, 6) and everything else that God called into being. The following words were also spoken to Him: “Let us make man in Our image and in Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The Word, according to command, did everything that the Father commanded Him. And we say this not based on our own guesses alone, but based on faith in the prophecies that were accepted among the Jews. In these prophecies, God and His creations are literally spoken of in the following terms: “He spoke and it was done, He commanded” and it appeared (Ps. 32:9, 149:5). If God (ὁ θεός) commanded, and creations were created, then who, according to the thoughts of the prophetic spirit, could fulfill such a command of the Father, if not He who is, let me put it this way, the animated Word (ἔμψυχος λόγος) and “Truth”. And the One who says in Jesus: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), is not, according to the meaning of the Gospels, some kind of limited being in the sense that apart from the soul and body of Jesus He did not exist anywhere. This is clear from many places; but we will allow ourselves to cite only a few of them. When John the Baptist announced the imminent coming of the Son of God, he, of course, did not think about the Being who was limited to that body and that soul, but about the One who penetrates everywhere (φθάνοντα πανταχοῦ); he says: “There is someone standing among you,” “Whom you do not know: He is the one coming after me” (John 1:26–27). If (John) thought that the Son of God was only where the visible body of Jesus should be, then how could he then say: “stands among you” someone “whom you do not know?” And Jesus himself directs the minds of his disciples to a higher concept of the Son of God when he says: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). The promise that He gave to the disciples was of the same nature, addressing them with the following words: “and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). However, we do not say this at all in order to separate the Son of God from Jesus. Especially after the completion of the dispensation, the body and soul of Jesus were united with the Word of God in the most intimate way (ἓν γεγένηται). If, according to the teaching of Paul, which he expresses in the words: “he who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17), every person who has known what it means to be united with the Lord, and who has been united with Him, is one spirit with the Lord, then is not that being who was once united with the Word of God even more Divinely and to a much greater extent one with Him? And that He really is the Power of God, Jesus proved through his miracles, which Celsus, however, wants to present as witchcraft and which the Jews - I don’t know on what basis - then attributed to Beelzebub, claiming that Jesus “casts out demons no other way than by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:22). But our Savior showed all the great folly of them, which lies in these words, by referring to the fact that the kingdom of evil has not yet come to an end. This conclusion may be obvious to everyone who begins to read the Gospel Scripture with prudence, which, however, is now untimely to understand. X. What on earth are these “promises” that Jesus did not fulfill? Let Celsus take the trouble to name and indicate them; but in any case he is not able to accomplish this. After all, the accusations directed against us or against Jesus, he borrows mainly from stories that he falsely interprets, or from Gospel passages that he distorts, or from Jewish fables. And since the Jew further says: “We convicted Him, found Him guilty and sentenced Him to punishment,” then let them show us how those who tried to bring false evidence against Him convicted Him? Wasn’t the great accusation against Jesus that which His accusers uttered, pointing out how “He said: “I am able to destroy the church of God and in three days build it” (Matthew 26:61; John 2:19)? As for Jesus, “He spoke of the church of His body” (John. 2:21), they did not understand what exactly He wanted to say with this expression, and thought that He was talking about the stone church, to which the Jews gave more honor than to the true church of God, which is the Word, Wisdom and Truth, to which honor is due. And who can say that “Jesus hid himself in the most shameful manner and tried to escape”? Let them show us at least some action that could be reproached to Him. It is said that "He was captured." I can answer: if the very fact of the capture had been against His will, then Jesus would not have been captured. But the proper time had come to give himself into the hands of men, and He did not resist as the “Lamb of God” in order to “take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus, knowing everything that would happen to Him, went out and said to them: Whom are you looking for? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them: It is I. And Judas, His betrayer, stood with them. And when he said to them, “It is I,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them: Who are you looking for? They said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I told you that it is I; Therefore, if you are looking for Me, leave them, let them go” (John 18:4–8). Moreover, He even addressed the one who wanted to help him, who hit the high priest’s servant and “cut off his ear” with the following words: “Return your sword to its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will present to Me more than twelve legions of Angels? How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, that this must be so” (Matthew 26:51–54)? If anyone in all these stories thinks to see the inventions of the writers of the Gospels, then why cannot such inventions be seen even more in those accusations that hatred and enmity squander against Jesus and Christians? Why not the other way around: cannot we recognize as the truth what was written by those who proved the sincerity of their affection for Jesus even by their readiness to endure everything for His teaching? Such firmness and constancy - even to death - serves as proof that the disciples of Jesus could not have any intention that could force them to spread fables about their teacher. To more or less impartial people it is quite clear that the disciples were convinced of the truth of what they described, since they suffered so many and such great persecutions because of their faith in Jesus as the Son of God. XI. The further objection that Jesus was betrayed by those whom he called disciples was borrowed by the Jew Celsus from the Gospels; but at the same time he mistook one Judas for many disciples, thereby giving his accusation greater force. In general, he did not penetrate enough into the meaning of the Scriptures' narrative about Judas. In the soul of Judas, obviously, opposing feelings were fighting: he was not hostile to Jesus with all his soul, but he did not retain with all his soul towards Him the feeling of respect with which a student feels for his teacher. Deciding to betray Him, (Judas) gave a sign to the approaching crowd intending to seize Jesus and said: “Whoever I kiss is the same, take Him” (Matthew 26:48). He thus retained some sense of respect towards Him: after all, if he did not have this feeling, then he would have betrayed Him directly without a hypocritical kiss. Hence, is it not clear to everyone that in the soul of Judas, along with the love of money and the evil intention of betraying the teacher, was closely connected the feeling produced in him by the words of Jesus - that feeling which, so to speak, still contained in him some remnant of good disposition. In Scripture we read (Matt. 27:3-5): “Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He was condemned, and repented, and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. They said: What is that to us? see for yourself. And throwing down the pieces of silver in the church, he went out; went and hanged himself." If the money-loving Judas, stealing alms that were put in a box (John 13:29) for the benefit of the poor, returned thirty pieces of silver to the bishops and elders out of a feeling of repentance, then this is undoubtedly the effect of the teaching of Jesus, which the traitor could not completely despise and cast out. And the expression: “I sinned by betraying innocent blood” was, in fact, an awareness of my guilt. Look at the burning pain that repentance for the crime he committed produced in him: he could no longer endure even life itself, threw money into the church, hastily left (from here), left and hanged himself. And by this act, he pronounced a sentence on himself and at the same time showed what power the teaching of Jesus had over Judas - this sinner, thief and traitor, who still could not completely tear out of his heart the teaching of Jesus taught to him. And will like-minded people of Celsus really consider all these circumstances as fiction, which prove that the fall of Judas, even after the crime he committed against his teacher, was by no means complete? Will they really present as truth only the fact that one of the disciples betrayed Him, and at the same time add to the Scripture that he betrayed Jesus with all his heart? After all, it is completely unreasonable to base trust or distrust of the evidence of the same scriptures on one feeling of hatred alone. As for Judas, we can - if necessary - point out to our opponents one circumstance that can shame them; we can refer from the Book of Psalms to the entire one hundred and eighth Psalm, which concerns the betrayal of Judas and has the following beginning: “God of my praise! don't be silent. For wicked lips and deceitful lips have been opened against me” (Ps. 109:1-2). It is predicted there that Judas, through his crime, excluded himself from the ranks of the Apostles and that another should be chosen in his place. This thought is given in the following expression: “and dignity” (ἐπισκοπὴν) “let another take it” (Ps. 109:8). Let us even assume that Jesus could have been betrayed by someone else from among his disciples, who was even worse than Judas, who completely tore out of himself all the teachings he heard from Jesus; but, one wonders, how does all this fit in with the accusations against Jesus and against Christianity? How can all this prove the falsity of his teachings? As for Celsus's further objections, we have already been engaged in refuting them. It was we who showed that Jesus did not at all try to run away when they wanted to grab Him, that He, on the contrary, voluntarily gave Himself into the hands of our enemies for all of us. It also follows from this that, although He was bound, this did not happen against His will for the purpose of teaching us to endure such suffering voluntarily for the sake of piety. XII. The following objections of Celsus seem completely childish to me. He says: “a good leader, commanding many thousands, has never been betrayed, even the chief of robbers has not been betrayed, even if he was a bad person and stood at the head of completely bad people, if only his associates saw benefit from him. Jesus, on the contrary, was betrayed by his subordinates: He did not show his power as a good leader, He was not able to instill in Himself from the deceived disciples even such favor as the thieves show to their boss.” Not true: you can find many stories about how leaders were betrayed by their entourage, how the leaders of robbers were captured due to the fact that their people turned out to be unfaithful to them. Let us even assume that none of the leaders and chiefs of the robbers was betrayed, but how can the fact that one of His pets turned out to be a traitor to him speak against Jesus? Celsus shows a penchant for philosophy, and we ask him the following question: was it really possible to bring charges against Plato just because Aristotle, after his twenty-year stay as a student of Plato, finally abandoned him, condemned his doctrine of the immortality of the soul and called his ideas empty dreams (τερετίσματα)? We can continue our thinking further and ask Celsus the following question: did Plato really become powerless in dialectics and unable to defend his thoughts after Aristotle left him? Did this really make Plato’s teachings false? Or perhaps Plato continued to be a teacher of truth, as his students, faithful to his philosophy, claimed, while Aristotle turned out to be crafty and ungrateful towards his teacher 194? Also Chrysippus, apparently, in many places of his works expresses reproaches against Cleanthes 195 and diverges from his views, although in his youth he was under his guidance and studied the foundations of his philosophy. And yet, as they say, Aristotle was a student of Plato for twenty years, and Chrysippus was under the leadership of Cleanthes for no less long. But Judas did not even spend three years with Jesus. In the descriptions of the lives of philosophers, however, one can find many such cases that give reason for Celsus to accuse Jesus because of Judas. And the Pythagoreans, for example, arranged tombstones (kenota'phia) for those who, having devoted themselves to philosophy, then returned to ordinary life. But it does not follow from this that Pythagoras and his disciples were incompetent in their teaching and evidence. XIII. “I could,” the Jew continues in Celsus, “say many things about Jesus that constitute the truth and are not similar to what was written by the disciples of Jesus; but it is not without intention that I remain silent about it.” The question is: what are these things that constitute the truth and at the same time do not agree with what is written in the Gospels, and about which the Jew in Celsus intends to remain silent? Or perhaps in this case he is only resorting to a special rhetorical device in order to convince him that he knows something else that can influence his readers and present Jesus and his teaching in an unfavorable light, while in fact, besides the Gospel, he knows nothing else? Further, the testimony of the disciples that Jesus foresaw and predicted everything that happened to Him, Celsus presents them as his own invention. But we, although contrary to the wishes of Celsus, will nevertheless try to prove the truth of these testimonies from many other prophecies of the Savior, in which He predicts to Christians events that were fulfilled for Him for the first time only in subsequent times. Who, indeed, will not express amazement in view of the following prediction: “And you will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, to be a witness to them and to the Gentiles” (Matthew 10:18) and so on, all that He predicted regarding the persecution of His disciples? Has such a teaching ever appeared among people, the followers of which were punished because - as some opponent of Jesus might say - this latter foresaw attacks on His godless and false teaching and was convinced that it would serve to glorify Him if only it predicted about this teaching? True, some could be brought “to rulers and kings” for their teachings, and most of all, of course, the Epicureans 196, who completely rejected Providence, and perhaps the Peripatetics, who valued nothing the prayers and sacrifices offered to the deity. But perhaps someone will say that even the Samaritans suffer persecution for their piety. To this we answer: they are condemned to death as murderers, because through mutilation they violate existing laws 197, which allow circumcision only for Jews. And we have not heard of a judge who, when interrogating such an accused, brought to trial for this religious belief, would ask him whether he wants to renounce his faith and thus be acquitted, or whether he intends to remain true to his convictions and for this be sentenced to death. Indeed, to impose punishment, simple proof that he underwent circumcision is sufficient. Meanwhile, only Christians, according to the prediction of the Savior, in which He said: “They will lead you to rulers and kings for Me,” are tortured (ἐπιτρέπονται) until their last breath by judges in order to force them to renounce Christianity, perform a sacrifice according to established customs, and then, after taking an oath, go home and spend a serene life there. life. Pay attention to the great authority that is revealed in the following words (of Jesus): “...everyone who confesses Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven; and whoever will deny Me before men (Matthew 10:32–33), and so on. Take your thoughts back with me to the time when Jesus spoke these words, and assume that these predictions have not yet been fulfilled! In this case, you may, of course, not trust Him and be of the opinion that He is chatting all this in vain and speaking in vain (let it not be said so, of course). If you cannot make this assumption and, on the contrary, feel indecisive whether you need to give faith to His words, then you will have to admit that the predictions are being fulfilled, the words of Jesus are being justified, the rulers and kings are looking to kill those who confess Jesus; in this case, we too will have to believe that He received great power from God in order to sow the teaching among the human race, and that He said so in the conviction that He would overcome all these obstacles. Who will not be filled with surprise, as soon as he is transported in thought to those times when Jesus taught and spoke these words: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14), - as soon as he sees how, according to the words of Jesus Christ, His Gospel is proclaimed throughout the heavenly places “both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the ignorant” (Rom. 1:14 )? No human nature was able to resist the force with which the teaching was proclaimed, and there is no people among people who would refuse to accept the teaching of Jesus. And if the Jew of Celsus does not want to believe that Jesus “foresaw all his adventures,” then let him reflect on how Jesus predicted the future fate of Jerusalem, which the Romans were preparing for him - predicted at a time when he stood firmly and all Jewish worship was still performed in it. No one, of course, will argue that the friends (γνωρίμους) of Jesus and His listeners only orally (χωρὶς γραφῆς) announced what we read in the Gospels, and that they did not leave any Scriptures for their disciples about the speeches and deeds of Jesus. Namely, in these Scriptures we now find the following words: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is approaching” (Luke 21:20). At that time, no army was yet standing in front of Jerusalem with the goal of encircling it, besieging it, and besieging it. This siege first began under the emperor Nero and lasted until the reign of Vespasian. The son of this latter is Titus and destroyed Jerusalem to the ground. This happened, as Joseph writes 198, as punishment for the murder of James the Righteous, the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ, but according to the voice of truth - because of Jesus, the Christ of God. XIV. Celsus could, of course, admit or even agree that Jesus foresaw “his future adventures,” and give this circumstance 199, in accordance with his opinion, the same, albeit small, significance as he did in relation to miracles, which he passes off as simple witchcraft (gohtei'a); could at least say that there were many people who found out their fate by resorting to fortune telling with the help of auspices (οἰωνοῖς), auguries (ὄρνισιν), haruspices (θυτικῇ) and genephlialogies (γενεθλιαλογίᾳ). But he did not even want to make this biggest (for him) concession, and performing miracles, despite the fact that he apparently accepted the very fact of their existence, equated it to something like witchcraft (γοητείας). Meanwhile, Phlegon 200 in the thirteenth or fourteenth - if I'm not mistaken - book of his Chronicle attributed to Christ the foresight (πρόγνωσιν) of the unknown future (τινων μελλόντων). True, he mixed up and instead of talking about Jesus, he talks about Peter, but he still testified that everything that and how He predicted was fulfilled. Regardless of this evidence of the foreknowledge (by Christ) of the future, he - even against his own desire - also showed that the preaching of the first heralds of our faith alien to Divine power. XV. “The disciples of Jesus,” Celsus continues, “in such an obvious matter did not have the opportunity to hide behind anything, and therefore decided to say that He foresaw all this.” But he did not pay or did not want to pay attention to the sincerity of these writers with which they do not even hide the fact that Jesus predicted to his disciples: “You will all be offended because of Me this night” (Matthew 26:31; Mark 14:27), and that this prediction was actually fulfilled when they became confused; that He also prophesied to Peter: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times” (Matthew 26:34; Mark 14:30; Luke 22:34; John 14:38), and that Peter actually denied Me three times. If they were not lovers of the truth, but - as Celsus believes - they wrote down a lie, then they could not have written down how Peter denied or how the disciples of Jesus became confused. If this actually happened, then who could prove that this really happened 201? Was it not natural for people who intended to teach those who come to the Gospel to despise death to remain silent about this because of their adherence to Christianity? But they knew that the power of the teaching must prevail over people, so they told about these events, in the belief, perhaps, that they would not harm the readers (of the Gospels) and would not give rise to denial. XVI. Already completely naively, Celsus claims that “the disciples allegedly wrote down such (events) only to justify Jesus in what was not in His favor. In this case, in his opinion, they acted like a person who considers a wicked man righteous according to his own image, considers a saint the one whom he represents as a murderer, considers immortal the one whom he depicted as already dead - and at the same time does not forget to add that he predicted all this.” The unsuitability of his comparison in this case is clear in itself. There is nothing strange in the fact that (Jesus), wanting in His own person to give an example to people how to live, at the same time showed them how to die for the faith (ὑπὲρ εὐσεβείας). Moreover, His own death for people was saving for each of them, as we have already discussed in the previous book. Then Celsus thinks that the very confession of suffering, in fact, confirms (his) conviction, and does not destroy. But, of course, (Celsus) does not know how many deep thoughts about this (suffering) Paul has, how much the prophets spoke about it. He also does not know that only someone who adheres to a heretical way of thinking said that the sufferings of Jesus were illusory and there was nothing real in them 202. After all, if Celsus knew all this, he would not have said the following words: “You, of course, should not say that He only seemed to wicked people to endure all these sufferings; in fact, He did not suffer; No, you must admit directly that He suffered.” But we are precisely far from recognizing the suffering (of Jesus) as illusory; otherwise, it would be necessary to recognize His Resurrection as a deception, while it was true. After all, whoever truly died and was resurrected is truly resurrected, and whoever only seemed to die is not truly resurrected. Non-believers laugh at our teaching about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we can also give them Plato’s story about Er, the son of Armenia 203, who after twelve days came to life at the stake and told about everything that he saw in the underworld. Likewise, it would not be useless for non-believers to point out, by the way, the story of Heraclides about the lifeless woman 204. There are also stories about many dead who came out of their coffins - and not only on the very day of burial, but also later. What is surprising if Jesus, despite His miraculous deeds, so numerous, so beyond (the understanding of) man and so obvious that (Celsus) only because it was impossible for himself to directly agree with the fact of their existence, was forced to equate them with sorcery, so that at least in this way he could be able to humiliate them - what is surprising, I say, if this Jesus also accepted in his death something even greater, since his soul voluntarily separated from the body and at this, of her own free will, she could return to it again 205 after completing the task intended for her outside of it 206? Concerning this circumstance, Jesus spoke these words, recorded by John: “No one takes her away from Me, but I myself give her. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). And, perhaps, His soul then separated from the body so quickly in order to preserve it, so that the legs would not be broken, as happened with the thieves crucified with Him: “and the legs of the first” (the robber) were broken, and the legs of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus, when they saw Him already dead, they did not break His legs” (John 19:32–33). So, we also answered the following (question): “how can we be sure that Jesus predicted (about this event)”? If now anyone wants to know, “why and how did He who was dead turn out to be immortal? - then you can give him such instructions on this question. After all, the immortal is not the One who died, but the One who rose from the dead. And since a dead person is not immortal, then, of course, Jesus, who united two natures in Himself (Ἰησοῦς ὁ σύνθετος), was not immortal before His death, because He also intended to die. In general, no one is immortal if he must die; but he is immortal who will not remain dead. “Christ, having risen from the dead, dies no more: death no longer has power over Him” (Rom. 6:9), although those who cannot understand exactly the meaning of these words are not willing to allow this latter. XVII. The following objection is also very stupid. “And what kind of God,” says Celsus, “can there be a God or a demon, or a reasonable person, who, foreseeing such contingencies, would not, as far as possible, turn them away from himself, but, on the contrary, would directly go to meet them, despite the fact that he knew about them in advance?” After all, Socrates knew that he had to drink hemlock and die; and at the same time, if he had followed Crito’s conviction, he could have avoided imprisonment and not experienced all this. But he decided on what seemed reasonable to him - it was better to die, as befits a philosopher, than to spend a life unworthy of a philosopher. Also, Leonidas, the commander of the Lacedaemonians, knew well that he, along with his people at Thermopylae, was about to fall in a very short time; At the same time, life associated with shame did not interest him at all, which is why he addressed his (soldiers) with the following speech: “Let's have breakfast, and we'll have lunch in hell 207.” It would be possible to collect many similar stories, if only there was a desire to do them. So, if Jesus, knowing about His sufferings, however, did not put them aside, and, anticipating them, went to meet them, then what is surprising in this? Paul, His disciple, did the same: he knew about the suffering that awaited him upon his entry into Jerusalem, and with all this, he, however, went towards dangers, turning with words of reproach to those who mourned him and prevented him from going to Jerusalem (cf. Acts 21 12-14). And many of our people, with all their knowledge that they would be put to death as soon as they were firm in the confession of Christianity, and that, on the contrary, they would receive freedom and acquire their property again if only they renounced Christianity, yet they despised life and voluntarily accepted death for their faith. XVIII. To this the Jew in Celsus adds such nonsense. “If Jesus,” he says, “predicted the betrayal of one (disciple) and the denial of another, then how could this fear of His Divinity not prevent the betrayal of one and the denial of another (disciple)?” The wise Celsus did not even notice how he fell into a contradiction in this case. After all, if (Jesus) as God foresaw (these circumstances), then, in fact, it was impossible for His foresight to turn out to be false - it was impossible for Him not to be betrayed by the one whose betrayal He foresaw, and not to be renounced by the one whom He reproached for the upcoming renunciation. If one were able not to betray, and the other not to renounce; in a word, if it happened that one of them would not betray, and the other would not renounce, after they had to find out about it: then He would no longer be true who said that one would betray, and the other would renounce Him. And if He foresaw the traitor, then He knew, in fact, the wickedness on which the betrayal depended and which, in any case, could not be destroyed by foresight. If He equally foresaw and predicted the renunciation (of Peter), then this is, in fact, because He knew the weakness that should lead to the renunciation. Moreover, this did not mean at all that the weakness should have been strengthened precisely by foresight. How did Celsus come to such a statement: “but they betrayed and renounced, having no respect for Him”? How little can be said about Judas, that he betrayed his Teacher without having any respect for Him - all this has already been shown by us above. It is no more difficult to prove (this position) 208 in relation to Peter’s denial: after all, he “went away” after he denied and “wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75; Luke 22:62). XIX. Not much insight is revealed in the further remark of Celsus. “When,” he says, “even a person notices the intrigues arranged for him and announces his discovery to the persons who organized these intrigues, the latter retreat from their plans and are careful not to carry them out.” But many, despite the fact that their intrigues were revealed, nevertheless did them! As if in the form of a general conclusion to his words, Celsus speaks further. “So, not at all because they were predicted, all these events happened: after all, this is impossible. But since they happened, because of this, the very statement that these events were predicted turns out to be a lie. In any case, it is absolutely incredible that people would be prone to betrayal and renunciation after they had to hear about them in advance.” Once we have refuted the above words of Celsus, the conclusion from them already suggests itself, namely the position that “these events did not happen because they were predicted in advance.” We will say this: these events happened, they were, therefore, possible; and since they happened, the very prediction about them turns out to be true. After all, the truth of prophecies follows from their fulfillment. So, his accusation, which says that the prediction is supposedly a lie, turns out to be false. And already, completely without reason, Celsus says that people absolutely cannot allow betrayal and renunciation after they become aware of them in advance. XX. Let's see what Celsus brings next. He says: “(Jesus) spoke this prophecy of his as God, and therefore it was fitting that his prediction should be fulfilled. Consequently, according to His Divinity, He brought His disciples and prophets, with whom he ate and drank together, into such a position that they became atheists and wicked, while He should have been the distributor of benefits to all people in general and those close to Him in particular. And if there was no case of anyone plotting intrigues against the person with whom he had to be a participant in the table, then how much more so could the one who shared the feast with Him turn out to be malicious in relation to God? And what is especially strange is that God Himself plots against His partners in the table and makes them traitors and wicked!” Since you 209 order me to refute even those objections of Celsus that seem insignificant to me, I will give the following answer regarding the words of Celsus just quoted. Celsus thinks that a prophecy based on the foresight of someone is fulfilled because it was predicted. We do not agree with this conclusion and affirm that prophecy is not at all the cause of future events: and Jesus only predicted their occurrence; future events, which could generally occur regardless of the prediction about them, on the contrary, gave the Prosolite only a reason to predict them. And in general, the entire existing world of phenomena is accessible to the consciousness of the prophet who foresees these phenomena: it is possible that they could have happened or not, but only one of these two possibilities should come true. We also do not assert that the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of a certain event depends on the prophet, that in this case he says something like this: this will certainly happen, and it cannot be otherwise. This provision applies to any prophecy that relates to events that depend on us - it makes no difference whether we take these events from the Divine Scriptures or from Greek stories. A false conclusion (σόφισμα), or, as dialecticians express it, a lazy syllogism (ἀργὸς λόγος) would, therefore, no longer be a false conclusion if only one had to agree with Celsus, although in the eyes of any sane person it constitutes precisely a false conclusion. To clarify this reasoning, I will quote from Scripture (as an example) the prophecies that relate to Judas, or the words of our Savior, which reflected His foreknowledge of the traitor. From the Greek historical books I will give the answer of the oracle that was given to Laius; Moreover, in this case we recognize this story as reliable, because this circumstance is indifferent to us. So in Psalm 108 the following words about Judas are put into the Savior’s mouth: “O God, my praise! do not remain silent, for wicked lips and deceitful lips have been opened against me” (Ps. 109:1, 2). If you delve into the content of this psalm, you will find that the treacherous betrayal of the Savior was announced in advance, as well as the fact that the reason for this betrayal lies in Judas himself, and that he himself deserved those curses that in the prophecy are associated with his own anger. Indeed, he could suffer such punishment because - as it is said here - “he did not think to show mercy, but persecuted a poor and needy man” (Ps. 109:16). Thus it was in his power to “remember mercy” and not turn away the one whom he rejected. He could, and yet he did not; on the contrary, he even allowed betrayal and for this he became worthy of the curses that the prophecy assigned to him. As for sins, we will use the oracle’s prediction that was given to Laius 210, in the form in which the tragedian conveys it 211 - I don’t know literally or only in approximately exact terms. The following words were addressed to him on behalf of the herald of the future: Do not waste your seed on the birth of children when the gods have not given their consent: Even if you give birth to a son, your offspring will be your killer, And the blood shed will stain your whole house. From these words it is clear that Lai had the opportunity to abstain “from having children”: after all, the oracle could not demand anything impossible from him. But birth was also possible for him: both were completely in his power. Since he did not refrain from giving birth to children, that is why those disasters that tragedies depict to us descended on Oedipus and Jocasta and their children. As for the so-called lazy syllogism (ἀργὸς λόγος), which at the same time is a false conclusion, it consists in the fact that through it one can, for example, distract a patient from his decision to use a doctor to restore his health, and address him with such a speech. If you are destined by fate to be freed from illness, then you will still recover, regardless of whether you call a doctor or not. If fate has predetermined that you will not recover, then whether you call for a doctor or not, you won’t recover anyway. In a word, are you destined by fate to be freed from the disease, or are you destined to remain sick: in either case, you will call the doctor in vain. The following humorous words can also be equated to this syllogism. If fate has determined that you have children, you will still have them, regardless of whether you get married or not. Consequently, whether fate has decided to give you children or not, in either case you will have intercourse with your wife in vain. But just as here a connection with a wife cannot be considered purposeless, because without this connection with a wife the origin of offspring is completely unthinkable and impossible: so, in the same way, the invitation of a doctor is necessary, since recovery from an illness comes from the art of medicine. That is why the advice itself: “you are in vain to invite a doctor” turns out to be false. We have brought all this in view of the objection presented by the wise Celsus in his following words: “(Jesus) spoke this prophecy of his as God, and therefore it was entirely necessary for His prediction to be fulfilled.” If he used the expression “completely” (πάντως) in the sense of “necessary” (κατηναγκασμένως), then I do not agree with him: after all, this could not have happened. If the expression “completely” for him means: “will be,” then - in view of the fact that this meaning does not contradict the truth, especially if we assume the possibility of this event not happening - then, it means there is no temptation in our speech. In fact, from the prediction of Jesus that one would betray Him and the other would deny him, it also follows that this very (prediction) became for them the reason for their wickedness and evil deed. After all, Whoever knew, “for He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25), as our faith teaches, He, of course, knew the evil heart of Judas and saw what it could decide to do given the existence of the love of money in him and in the absence of the necessary firm faith in the teacher. That is why Jesus said among other things: “He who dipped his hand into the dish with Me, this one will betray Me” (Matthew 26:23). XXI. Look how superficial and full of lies the following words of Celsus are, in which he comes to the conclusion that “no one has ever plotted against a man with whom he had to become a participant at the table. And if there could be no intrigues in relation to a person, then even more so in relation to God the one who shared the feast with him could not turn out to be malicious.” But who doesn’t know that there were many who plotted intrigues even with those with whom they spent time together in the same house and shared salt and meals? The history of the Greeks and barbarians is full of examples of this kind. So the Parian 212 iambic poet blames Lycambus for breaking the alliance sealed with “salt and bread.” He says, turning to Lykambus: You broke a great oath - the right to salt and table. Lovers of history, who devote themselves entirely to it and at the same time neglect the more necessary knowledge that constitutes a guide to the right way of life, can produce many evidences and thus prove that sharing the table together does not protect against intrigues. XXII. Then, as if in the form of an indisputable conclusion constituting a consistent conclusion, he added the following remark: “And in particular,” he says, “it is also strange that God Himself plots against his accomplices at the table and makes them traitors and wicked people.” That Jesus plotted against the disciples and made traitors and wicked men out of them, he in any case cannot prove this, and in support of his position he can only refer to the fact that it constitutes a consistent conclusion from previous reasoning. But this sequence can very easily be overthrown by any ordinary person. XXIII. After this, Celsus says: “If (Jesus) was pleased with all this and He suffered punishments out of obedience to the Father, then it is clear that the punishments known to Him could not have been painful and painful for Him, since He, as God, of His own free will allowed them (cf. Matt. 16:21; John 10:17).” Celsus did not even notice how he contradicted himself here. If he admitted that Jesus suffered punishment because it was His own will and He gave Himself up in order to obey the Father, then it is obvious that He actually suffered punishment and that everything inflicted on Him by the tormentors was certainly accompanied by painful sensations. After all, suffering was not contrary to His intention. If all the punishments inflicted (on Jesus), according to His desire, were not associated with pain and suffering, then how did Celsus then recognize the very fact of punishment? He did not think that Jesus, since He took on a body by birth, then He took on a body capable of being subject to illness and all the hardships that are inherent in (our) bodies - especially if we mean by these hardships what no one wants for himself. And just as Jesus desired to take on a body not substantially different from the nature of human flesh σάρκα), likewise He accepted, along with the body, its sufferings, as well as hardships, which the Lord was not even able not to feel. That is why His enemies were able to inflict these hardships and sufferings on Him. We have already proven above that Jesus, in fact, could not have given himself into the hands of people if he had only wanted to. But He came (for this purpose), that’s why He wanted, and He wanted because His death for people was supposed to bring salvation to the world (τῷ παντὶ χρήσιμον). XXIV. Further, Celsus wants to imagine that the suffering of Jesus was painful and painful, that they could not have been otherwise, even if He wanted it. Here are his own words: “Why did Jesus cry out for help and weep, why did He pray that His destructive fear would pass, why did He have to say the following words: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away (cf. Matt. 26:39, 42; Luke 22:42)?” Pay attention here to the meanness (τὸ κακοῦργον) of Celsus! Instead of taking into account the love of truth of the writers of the Gospels, who, of course, could have kept silent about everything that, in the opinion of Celsus, could serve to accuse (Jesus), and yet did not remain silent - for many reasons, understandable to anyone who delves into the meaning of the Gospel: instead, I repeat, Celsus condemns the Gospel story, allowing exaggerations in it and exposing what the Evangelists did not say at all. At least nothing is written in the Gospels about Jesus “weeping.” The words: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me,” Celsus distorts and does not connect them with the following expression of Scripture: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39), an expression that reveals the piety of Jesus in relation to the Father and the greatness of His soul. It may be objected that Celsus did not read this passage, from which it is clear with what obedience Jesus subjected Himself to those sufferings that constitute the decision of the Father’s will, namely, that passage that reads like this: “if this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done.” But then, it means that Celsus acted like those wicked people who listen to the Divine Scriptures with biased evil thoughts and maliciously divulge (about them) slander (cf. Ps. 72:8). These (the wicked) 213 imagine that they have heard the expression (of the Scriptures): “I will kill,” and they often reproach us with this very expression; but regarding the expression: “I will give life (Deut. 32:39)” they remain deeply silent. Meanwhile, this entire passage, taken as a whole, means that God kills those who live to harm humanity and cause injustice to it, but with the goal of leading them to a better life - to the one that God gives to those who die to sin. In the same way, those wicked people notice the words: “I will strike” and at the same time do not see the expression: “and I will heal” (Deut. 32:39; cf. 57:17). God in these passages is expressed as a doctor who, cutting the body, makes deep and painful wounds in order to remove from them everything harmful and impeding recovery - and this is not at all with the intention of causing the body only suffering and ugliness, but then, through treatment, to restore it to its former health. The wicked do not listen to the whole of the following passage: “He smites, and His hands heal,” but (read) only part of this passage “causes wounds” (Job 5:18). The Jew Celsus speaks in a similar way. He quotes the words: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away,” and at the same time omits the following expression, which indicates the readiness of Jesus and His firm determination with which He subjected Himself to suffering. All these explanations, which could be drawn from the (source of) the wisdom of God, are, of course, of great importance for those whom Paul calls “perfect” in his next words: “But we preach wisdom among those who are perfect” (1 Cor. 2:6). But we will leave them for another time, limiting ourselves in this case to only those few arguments that are relevant for the present purpose. XXV. We have already said 214 that in some expressions belonging to Jesus, He is spoken of as the firstborn of all creation (Compare Col. 1:15; John 14:6), as we see in the words: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and in other similar ones; in other expressions the idea of ​​Jesus as a man is conveyed. This is, for example, the place where Jesus says: “Now you seek to kill Me, the Man who told you the truth, which I heard from God” (John 8:40). But here, where He describes His human nature, He depicts, on the one hand, the weakness of human flesh, and, on the other, the greatness of the spirit: weakness in the words “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me,” and the greatness of the spirit in the words: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” You should also pay attention to the order of expressions. Notice that at first the weakness of the flesh is depicted, as they might say, directly and simply; and then the greatness of the spirit is depicted in more extensive expressions. The words: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” form only a part (of the expression); on the contrary, the words: “not as I want, but as You”, and further: “My Father, if this (cup) cannot pass Me, and I cannot help but drink from it, then let Your will be done -” constitute a more extensive part. We must also not lose sight of the fact that it does not simply say: “let this cup pass from me,” but on the contrary, all these words: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” contain the imprint of piety and humility. I know that there is another explanation for this place: they think that the Savior here sees the disasters that the people and Jerusalem were supposed to undergo as punishment and revenge for the fact that the Jews were plotting against Him. Not for any other reason, but precisely out of love for the Jews, wanting to ward off the disasters that threatened them from the people, He says: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me!” In this case, He seemed to express it this way: since Your wrath will weigh upon all the people if I drink this cup of suffering, then I pray that “if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me,” so that Your inheritance will not be completely abandoned by You because it plotted against Me. And if, as Celsus says, Jesus did not really endure any suffering or torment then, then how, one asks, could those who came to Jesus use Him as an example of how persecution for the faith could be carried out, if only His sufferings were illusory, not the same as those experienced by people? XXVI. The Jew in Celsus also accuses the disciples of Jesus of allegedly making up their stories. He tells them: “What you presented is all a lie, and you are not even able to cover this lie with the plausibility of the truth.” To this I answer: they had the easiest means at their disposal to completely remain silent about these (events), and from the very beginning not to write anything about them. And if the Gospels did not report anything about this, then who could then with gloating point to these words of Jesus, which He spoke during the times of His economy? Celsus did not think that two reproaches could not be brought against the same persons: on the one hand, that they were deceived in Jesus, in whom they believed as God and, moreover, proclaimed by the prophets, and, on the other hand, that they divulged such fictions about Him, the untruth of which they did not in the least conceal their doubt. One thing: either their stories are not fictitious and are in agreement with their own convictions, and, therefore, their records are not false; or, on the contrary, all their writings are deliberately fabricated, are in conflict with their beliefs, they themselves were not at all victims of deception and did not believe in the Divinity of Jesus. XXVII. Further, Celsus says: “there are some among believers who are like people who, as a result of drunkenness, reach the point of attempting suicide; they change the original text of the Gospel three times, four times, many times, reinterpreting it until they are able to dodge all objections.” As for me, I know only the followers of Marcion and Valentinus, and perhaps Lucian 215, who distorted the Gospel. This objection in no way concerns our teaching and can only be directed against those who are not at all embarrassed to treat the Gospels frivolously. And just as the teachings of the Sophists, Epicureans and Peripatetics, and the false opinions of any other school, cannot serve as a basis for blaming philosophy, so true Christianity cannot be responsible if some persons introduce distortions into the Gospels and introduce errors in them (αιρέσεις), which are contrary to the spirit of the teachings of Jesus. XXVIII. Then the Jew Celsus also reproaches the fact that “Christians refer to the prophets who predicted the suffering of Jesus.” We have already discussed this objection 216 above and now on this issue we will only make the following addition. Since, in his own words, he “takes care of people,” he should have cited these very prophecies, as well as spoken out about the degree of their persuasiveness and then shown that the Christians’ reference to the prophecies can be considered fair only at first glance. Only in this case it would not be noticeable that he was embracing an object of such great importance in two or three words. (A detailed study of the prophecies was necessary) especially because “the prophecies, in his own words, can be applied to thousands of other persons even with greater right than to Jesus.” This circumstance also constitutes the main point of study for Christians; That’s why he also had to pay special attention and, in fact, provide a thorough explanation for each prophecy that it “applies to a thousand other persons much more than to Jesus.” Celsus does not notice that all these objections could be unfavorable to Christians only if they were made by a person who rejects the prophetic writings; Meanwhile, Celsus puts his speeches into the mouth of his Jew, who cannot dispute the authenticity of these writings. It is the Jew who will not admit the idea that “prophecies can be applied to a thousand other persons rather than to Jesus”; he will present each prophecy as it best seems to him, and in any case he will try to refute the explanation coming from Christians. Even if he doesn’t say anything reliable, he will at least try to make his words credible. XXIX. We have already had occasion to say that the prophets announced the double coming of Jesus to the human race. Therefore, it will be useless to give any answer to the following words (Celsus), which he puts into the mouth of the Jew: “according to the prediction of the prophets, He who is to come is a great and mighty Lord, who will rule over all the earth, over all nations and over armies.” As for the addition to these words: “such a disastrous plague 218 was not predicted by them,” then, in my opinion, it shows only the malice of the Jews, with which they tried to abuse Jesus without any reason, even if any convincing. In any case, neither the Jews, nor Celsus, nor anyone else will ever be able to prove that He is the “plague” - He who brought so many people out of the stream of wickedness and directed them to a life in accordance with nature and adorned with chastity (swfrosu'nh_s) and other virtues. XXX. Celsus was so impudent that he made the following remark: “no one,” he says, “will believe that with such hints (συμβόλων), such perverted interpretations and empty arguments, the Divinity and Sonship of Jesus can be proven.” But he should have given the interpretations themselves and exposed them: he should have shown the emptiness of the arguments and thus given the opportunity to the Christian to answer and refute those objections that could turn out to be to some extent well-founded. As for the events that, according to Celsus, should have happened to confirm the greatness of Jesus, these events actually happened: Celsus just does not want to notice them, despite the obviousness with which they are associated (with the personality of) Jesus. Celsus says: “After all, the Son of God had to do exactly the same as the sun, which, illuminating all other things, first of all itself becomes visible.” But we are precisely saying that Jesus did this. “In His days shall the righteous prosper, and” there shall be “abundance of peace” (Ps. 71:7), beginning from the moment of His birth. God prepared the nations for His teaching and arranged it so that the Roman king began to dominate the whole world. After all, if there were many kingdoms, then the peoples would remain strangers to each other; then the fulfillment of the command of Jesus: “go and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19), the command that was given to the Apostles, would be associated with significant difficulties. It is known that the birth of Jesus followed the reign of Augustus, who merged - so to speak - the numerous nations of the earth into one kingdom. And this was important because the existence of numerous kingdoms, of course, would serve as an obstacle to the spread of the teachings of Jesus throughout the entire earth, not only for the above reason, but also because then the peoples would be forced to wage war and defend the fatherland, as was actually the case before the time of Augustus and especially in even more distant times, when one people had to wage war with another people, as, for example, the Peloponnesians with the Athenians. So, how could this teaching of the world, which does not even allow revenge for the insults of enemies, be victorious if only the coming of Jesus had not changed earthly relations and brought them into a state of balance (ἐπὶ τὸ ἡμερώτερον). XXXI. Celsus further accuses Christians of the fact that “they do not neglect even false conclusions when proving their position that the Son of God is at the same time the Word Himself (αὐτολόγον) (of God).” He even thinks of giving special force to this objection of his, since he says that “instead of the pure and holy word, which in our preaching about the word we present as the Son of God, we showed, in fact, a man who was most shamefully imprisoned and then martyred to death.” We have already considered this objection, albeit briefly, where, in contrast to the accusations of Celsus, we showed that “the firstborn of every creation” (Col. 1:15) took on body and human soul, that at the creation of this world God commanded and everything was created, and that the one who accepted this command was God the Word. Since Celsus makes the above objection from a Jew, we consider it not superfluous to use in this case the following saying already mentioned (See 1, LIIV, p. 71) by us: “He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their graves” (Ps. 106:20). Celsus further forces his Jew to say: “If indeed, according to your teaching, the Word is the Son of God, then we also agree (with you).” But for my part, I have not yet heard from a single Jew the confession that “the Word is the Son of God,” although I had conversations with many Jews, even with those who considered themselves to be among the sages. XXXP. We have already indicated 220 that Jesus can be neither a “braggart” nor a “sorcerer”; therefore, we do not need to repeat what has been said and thus, in contrast to the repetitions of Celsus, repeat ourselves. He also draws attention to the genealogy (of Jesus) (Matthew 1:1; Luke 3:23), but at the same time does not mention at all that Christians themselves have disputes on this issue and that some of them, in the form of objections (to the Evangelists), point to disagreements in genealogies 221. Celsus, as a true boaster, despite his statement that “he knows the whole teaching of Christians,” nevertheless failed to prudently cast a shadow of doubt on the Scriptures. Meanwhile, he considers it “extreme arrogance that the compilers of the genealogy trace the origin of Jesus back to the first man and to the kings of the Jews.” He thinks that he is introducing something completely special when he says that “the carpenter’s wife should have known about this pedigree, if only she came from such a noble family.” But what of this? Let's say she knew. What do we refute with this? Even from the assumption that she really did not know her past, is it possible to conclude that she is not at all descended from the first man, that she was not a scion of the line of the ancient kings of Judah? Or perhaps Celsus firmly adheres to the opinion that the poor can only come from the poor, and that kings can only come from kings? In a word, it seems to me completely in vain to dwell longer on this point of the objection, since it is known that in our time, from rich and noble parents, some will be born poor - even poorer than Mary was, and, on the contrary, leaders and kings of nations are born from inglorious ones. XXXIII. Celsus asks: “If Jesus is God, what great thing has He done? Did He show contempt to His enemies? Did He ridicule and treat all the disasters that befell Him?” In view of this question from Celsus, we could, of course, point to both the “greatness” and the miraculousness in the suffering and death of Jesus. But where would we have to give an answer if not on the basis of the Gospels, which say that “the earth shook; and the stones dissipated; and the tombs were opened,” as “the sun darkened and the curtain in the church was torn in two, from top to bottom”; and there was “darkness” throughout the whole day (cf. Matt. 27:52, 51; Luke 23:44, 45; Mark 15:38)? After all, Celsus trusts the Gospels only when he expects to find objections against Christians in them. But he does not trust them at all when they talk about the Divinity of Jesus. In view of this, we can only exclaim: oh, Celsus, Celsus (ὦ οὗτος)! Either you completely do not believe anything and do not even try to refer (to the Gospels), or believe in everything and be imbued with reverence for the Word of God, Who became man in order to show, according to His desire, good (ὠφελῆσαι) to the entire human race. The greatness of Jesus’ work is confirmed by the fact that to this day His name continues to bring healing to those to whom God wishes to deliver it. As for the solar eclipse, which occurred in the days of Caesar Tiberius, during whose reign, as is known, Jesus was crucified, and as for, on the other hand, the great earthquake that happened at that time, Phlegon also reports about these circumstances, if I am not mistaken - in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicle. XXXIV. The Jew in Celsus even begins to make jokes completely in the spirit of Celsus and joke about Jesus with the words of Euripides 222, which are put into the mouth of Bacchus: As soon as I wish, God Himself will save me. But it happens very rarely that Jews show love for Greek literature! Even if we assume that there was such a person from among the Jews, a passionate lover (of Greek literature), all the same, how can we draw conclusions from this fact that Jesus did not free Himself from prison because He was unable to arrange this liberation for Himself? Celsus would have done much better if he had given credit to our Scriptures, which tell us that Peter, imprisoned, came out of prison when an angel removed the chains from him (Acts 12:6-9), that Paul with Silas in Philippi, a Macedonian city, was imprisoned in wooden stocks, but with the help of Divine power was released when the “prison doors” were opened (Acts 16:24-26). But Celsus probably finds these events funny, or perhaps he has not even read about them at all. Otherwise, he, of course, would not have been slow to make his objection to them in the sense that some sorcerers manage to destroy shackles and open doors with the help of spells, and that those events that we read about in our (Sacred) books must be equated with the actions of sorcerers. “Even the one who condemned Jesus,” notes Celsus, “did not suffer any punishment, whereas it affected, for example, Pentheus, who flew into a rage and was torn to pieces.” But Celsus does not know that Jesus was condemned not by Pilate, who knew well that “they betrayed Him out of envy” (Matthew 27:18), but by the Jewish people. God's punishment weighs heavily on this people, since they found themselves scattered across the face of the entire earth and torn to pieces even more severely than even Pentheus. And why did Celsus deliberately remain silent about the dream that Pilate’s wife saw and which frightened her so much that she sent to her husband to say: “Do not do anything to the Righteous One, because now in a dream I have suffered a lot for Him” (Matthew 27:19). And then Celsus again suppresses in the Gospels all those events that point to the Divinity of Jesus, and for the purpose of slander, he cites only those places where it is said how they mocked Jesus, how they put a scarlet robe on Him, how they placed a crown of thorns (on his head) and put a cane in his hands. Tell me, Celsus: where, if not from the Gospels, do you know about all these events? You, it is true, find them worthy of ridicule; but the men who spoke about them did not even suspect that while you and people like you would subject them to ridicule, others, on the contrary, would take from here an example for a contemptuous attitude towards people who mock and abuse piety and Him who, for the sake of this piety, voluntarily accepted death. Be amazed at the love for truth that the writers of the Gospels possess; marvel at the One who endured all this completely freely for people and endured it with all the firmness and greatness of spirit. After all, Scripture does not say at all that “He wept” or that the death sentence was caused by some ignoble act or some ignoble word on His part. XXXV. “If not before,” continues Celsus, “then why, at least now, does not Jesus reveal His Divinity, why does He not free Himself from this shame, why does He not punish the offensive insolence that was shown both to Him and to the Father?” We give this answer to this. And in relation to the pagans who admit Providence and believe in miracles, one can propose exactly the same question: why does God not punish those who insult the Divine and deny Providence? And what the pagans offer in their defense in this case, we will say the same thing, even more than they. Indeed, even a special sign from above appeared in the sky: the sun darkened, there were also other miracles that showed that the Crucified One had something Divine and something that elevated Him above people. XXXVI. Celsus further asks: “What,” he says, “was the blood that flowed from the body of the Crucified One similar to that which Flowing from the sacred body of the gods? 223" Celsus, of course, is fiddling; we, on the basis of the serious narrative of the Gospel, even against the wishes of Celsus, can show that what flowed from the body of Jesus was not such fabulous blood as Homer depicts; on the contrary, when Jesus was already dead, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. And he who saw it bore witness, and his testimony is true” (John 19:34–35). In other dead bodies, the blood usually freezes and clean water does not flow; The dead body of Jesus presented an amazing feature: even from the ribs of the dead body, it turned out that blood and water flowed out. Even if Celsus, in order to humiliate Jesus and Christians, at the same time as bringing incorrectly interpreted evidence from the Gospel and keeping silent about the facts proving the Divinity of Jesus, wants to listen to signs from above, then let him read the Gospel and see that “the centurion and those who were with him guarding Jesus, seeing the earthquake and everything that happened, were greatly afraid and said: Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:54). XXXVII. After this, selecting from the Gospel only those expressions that, in his judgment, give grounds for an objection, Celsus even charges Jesus with the fact that “He greedily rushed to drink gall and vinegar and thus did not overcome His thirst, although any person is often able to overcome it.” This passage can, in fact, be understood in an allegorical sense, but in this case, to the objection made, we intend to give the usual (κοινοτέρας) answer that the prophets also predicted about this event. Thus, in Psalm 68, the following words are put into the mouth of Christ: “and they gave me gall for food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Ps. 68:22). And let the Jews say, who is this who speaks thus in the prophecy; Let them show us from history the one who took “bile” into his mouth and who was “drinking vinegar?” They will, of course, try to argue that these words refer to the Messiah, whose coming they are expecting; but we ask them: what prevents us from considering this prediction as already fulfilled? And this prophecy, which was given so much time earlier, as well as all the other predictions that we find in the prophets, are completely sufficient to lead any impartial researcher to the conviction that Jesus is the Christ 224 and the Son of God, whom the prophets announced. XXXVIII. Then the Jew turns to us with the following remark: “You who have a strong faith accuse us of not recognizing this (Jesus) as God and not agreeing with you in recognizing that He endured all these (sufferings) for the salvation of people, so that we too could disdain the punishments.” To this we will give the following answer. The Jews were brought up on the law and the prophets who proclaim Christ. In view of this circumstance, we blame them, firstly, for the fact that they do not even try to delve into the arguments we offer them to prove the Messianic dignity of Jesus, and for their part, as a justification for their unbelief, limit themselves to only pointing out that they have allegedly already refuted our arguments. Secondly, we blame them for the fact that, without examining the arguments, they do not believe in Him whom the prophets proclaimed, despite the fact that He clearly showed among His disciples and, moreover, after His incarnation that “He endured all these (sufferings) for the salvation of people.” After all, the purpose of His first coming was not at all to judge human actions, but to teach people in advance both in word and deed what they should do - not to punish the evil, but to grant salvation to the good (σῴζειν), but to miraculously and with some Divine power proclaim His teaching to the entire human race - and all this is exactly as predicted prophets We also accuse them of the fact that, despite the extraordinary power discovered by Jesus, they still did not believe Him and said that He cast out demons from the human soul “by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24, 9:34; Mark 3:22). We also blame them for the fact that they cast a shadow of suspicion even on His love for mankind, which prompted Him not only to pass through the city, but even to an insignificant Jewish village in order to proclaim the kingdom of God everywhere - even, we repeat, they slandered this love of His for mankind and accused Him of leading a supposedly wandering, full of deprivation and far from plausible life (ἐν ἀγεννεῖ σώματι). Meanwhile, there is nothing unseemly in enduring this kind of disaster, which accompanied the preaching of salvation to those people who were able to listen to this sermon. XXXIX. And don’t the following words of Celsus, which he puts into the mouth of a Jew, contain an obvious lie: “Jesus, as it were, throughout His life did not arouse faith in anyone, even in His disciples, and, in the end, was punished and endured all these sufferings?” But what, in fact, aroused hatred against Him on the part of the high priests, priests and scribes of the Jews, if not the fact that crowds of people believed in Him and followed Him even in the desert, delighted not so much by the attractiveness of His speeches, which always corresponded to the abilities and needs of the listeners, but especially by the impact that His miracles had, arousing surprise in those people who were not able to become believers thanks to His influence alone words? Isn’t it a clear lie hidden in Celsus’s statement that “Jesus did not even convince His own disciples”? True, they then experienced some human feelings out of fear - after all, they, in fact, were not yet prepared for firmness - but, in any case, they did not abandon their faith in Him as the Messiah. As soon as Peter denied Jesus, he already felt the abyss of sin into which he had fallen; “When he went out, he wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75; Luke 22:62). And the other disciples, indeed, were embarrassed by the sad circumstances that He had to experience, although they still continued to have a feeling of admiration for Him; but when He appeared to them (after the resurrection) (John 20:20), they were strengthened and believed even more and more firmly than before that Jesus was the Son of God. XL. Celsus already sins against philosophy when he imagines that the saving teaching and purity of morality of Jesus are not so satisfactory as to give Him a special advantage over people. He, in his opinion, should have become in His activity higher than the position that He assumed in His personality: He should not have died at all, although He accepted a mortal (body), or die, but in any case not such a death that could turn out to be a model for people who could find in it a reason for themselves to decide to die for faith and to openly confess this faith in the face of those who hold false beliefs regarding faith and unbelief and consider pious people to be the most Those who are considered wicked and, on the contrary, the most pious are those who are mistaken about God and find their inherent irreducible idea of God realized in every being, but not in God. And this seems to happen, especially in the case when people show a desire to kill those who devote themselves with all their souls “even to death” (Phil. 2:8) service 225 to the One and Highest (ἐπὶ πᾶσι) God. XLI. Celsus, on behalf of the Jew, also accuses Jesus of the fact that “He did not show himself free from all evil.” But let Celsus say a word, from what evil did Jesus show Himself not free? If he wants to say that Jesus was not free from evil in the proper sense of the word, 226 then let him present as evidence the evil act committed by Him. If by evil he means poverty, the cross and the intrigues of lost people, then he obviously must admit that misfortunes (κακὰ) also happened to Socrates and that he, therefore, was unable to show himself free from evil (ἀπὸ τῶν κακῶν). And how many other philosophers the Greeks had who were poor and voluntarily chose poverty for themselves - many Greeks from history know this. So it is known that Democritus 227 made a pasture for sheep from his estate, and Crates 228 gave the Thebans all his money, which he received from the sale of all his estates, just to preserve his freedom, Diogenes 229, due to his special undemandingness, even lived in a barrel, and in view of this circumstance, of course, not a single intelligent person will say that Diogenes was all evil. XLII. Further, Celsus wants to expose “Jesus as morally flawed.” But let him show us which of the followers of His teaching said anything that could give rise to reproach Jesus. And if among them he did not find any basis for accusing Him, then let him show us the source on which this assertion of his that the life of Jesus was faulty is based. Jesus had already demonstrated the truth of His promises in the benefits He showed to the people who clung to Him. And every day we see the fulfillment of what He predicted in advance, before all this happens - we see that (His) “Gospel” (Mark 13:10; Matt. 24:14) is “preached” throughout the entire Universe, that His disciples go and return His teaching to “all nations,” further, that these disciples must be brought “to rulers and kings” (Matthew 10:18; Mark 13:9; Luke 21:12) and not for any other reason, namely because of His teaching. We are filled with amazement before Him, our faith in Him becomes stronger and stronger day by day. And I, in fact, do not know what even stronger and clearer evidence in favor of the reliability of the predictions of Jesus needs to be presented in order to satisfy the requirements of Celsus. Celsus, as can be seen from everything, tried to achieve only that Jesus, in whom he does not recognize the Word made flesh, remained free from all human suffering, so that He would not be a noble example for people in enduring the misfortunes of life. After all, suffering in the eyes of Celsus is pitiful and shameful. The hardships of life are the greatest evil for him, and pleasure is the highest good. Meanwhile, this latter is considered worthless by those philosophers who admit Providence, and recognize courage, firmness and generosity as virtues. Yes, Jesus hardly overthrew faith in Himself with His suffering; on the contrary, through them He strengthened it even more in the hearts of those people who wanted to show courage - in the hearts of precisely those people who learned from Him that real and true bliss is not here, but in the future age, about which He spoke in His speeches, that life in this present world is full of vicissitudes and for the soul it constitutes the main and greatest struggle. XLIII. “You, of course, will not argue,” Celsus continues his speech, addressing us, “that Jesus descended into hell in order at least here to gain faith among people, after He failed to gain it among the inhabitants of the earth.” Whether Celsus will be pleased or not, we will give him this answer. While Jesus dwelt in the flesh, He did not acquire just a small number of followers; no - he won such a multitude of them that, in fact, because of this multitude of believers, intrigues began to be arranged for him. Then, when His soul was separated from the body 230, He directed His preaching to those souls that were not connected with bodies, in order to bring from them to faith in Himself those souls that themselves desired (this conversion), and likewise those to whom He Himself turned His gaze for reasons known only to Him. XLIV. And what Celsus says next is all inexpressibly stupid. He asks: “since you think that all these absurd proofs with which you have so ridiculously entangled yourself constitute a proper defense for you, then what prevents you from considering as even greater and more divine messengers even all these others who were condemned to death and ended their lives even more sadly (than Jesus)?” But it is clear and obvious to everyone that Jesus, who endured all the suffering described in Scripture, has nothing in common with those who “earned a sad end” for witchcraft or for any other similar crime. Actually, no one can prove that a sorcerer is able to perform any act that could turn souls away from great human sins, from this entire abyss of vice. But the Jew Celsus, equating Jesus with the robbers, says that “with the same shamelessness, about a robber and murderer subjected to punishment, anyone can say that he is God, and not a robber, and this is only on the basis that he allegedly predicted to his fellow robbers that he would suffer and endure everything that he actually suffered.” To this we will first of all give Celsus the following answer: it is not because Jesus predicted His suffering that we believed and testify about Him that He came from God. Secondly, we note that this comparison (of Celsus), in fact, was indicated in the Gospels. Here we read that God “was numbered with the lawless” (Mark 15:7–14; Luke 23:18, 19; John 18:39–40; Matt. 27:20–23) by those lawless who asked to release the thief thrown into prison for robbery and murder, and, on the contrary, to crucify Jesus, whom they actually crucified on the cross between two robbers. And in the person of those who are His true disciples and give evidence of the truth, Jesus now continues to be crucified between two thieves and, together with them, is condemned by people to the same punishment. We even affirm: if those who are not afraid of any shame, of any kind of death, so that only they can, through luminous and pure piety in the face of the Creator, remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus - if such people, I repeat, have something in common with robbers, then, of course, Jesus, who is the father and author of such a teaching, Celsus quite rightly equated with the leaders of the robbers. But still, both He who dies for the common good, and these who, out of their piety, endure suffering, being the only one of all people, and being subjected to intrigues for the path of reverence for God that was revealed to them, suffer completely unjustly, and Jesus was wickedly subjected to intrigues. XLV. Pay attention also to how superficially he expresses himself about the then disciples of Jesus. “And then,” he says, “even those who were near Him at that time during His life, who listened to His voice, who were His disciples, even these, as soon as they saw Him suffering and dying, not only did not die with Him and for Him, not only were not imbued with contempt for suffering, but even refused to be His disciples. Even now you still express your readiness to die for Him.” And in these words of Celsus, of course, there is a desire to blame our faith. And here again he has special confidence in those Gospel narratives that tell the story of the sins of the disciples, committed by them out of their weakness at a time when they were just called. Moreover, about the correction of the disciples after a sin, about their open confession in the face of the Jews (Acts 4:13; 9:27; 13:46; 14:3; 19:8), about the countless persecutions that they suffered from them, and finally, how they died for the teachings of Jesus - Celsus does not say a word about all this. He does not want to listen further to what Jesus says to Peter: “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands” (John 21:18) and so on, as well as the addition that Scripture adds to these words: “He said this” (Jesus), “meaning by what death” Peter “would glorify God” (John 21:19). Celsus also kept silent about the fact that James, the brother of John, the Apostle and brother of the Apostle, was killed by Herod “with the sword” for the teachings of Christ. Celsus does not mention anything about how Peter and the other Apostles openly confessed their faith (Acts 4:13), how much they worked for it and with what jubilation they came out of the Sanhedrin after accepting beatings (Acts 5:41) - rejoicing that they were “worthy to receive reproach for the name of Jesus” (Jesus), and thus prevailed over those Greek philosophers who, for their firmness and their courage were glorified in history. From the very beginning, among the disciples of Jesus, His following commandment had special force, which commanded us to despise the life that most people lead, and, on the contrary, to thrive in the life that is similar to the life of God. XLVI. Is the Jew Celsus really not lying when he says that “Jesus, during His earthly life, allegedly captivated only ten boatmen and tax collectors of very dubious morality, and not all of them?” Obviously, even the Jews must admit that Jesus, not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand - but at one time as many as five thousand, and another time four thousand - with one word won so many people to His side that they followed Him even into the desert, which alone was able to accommodate all that multitude of followers whom Jesus led to faith in God not only by His preaching, but also by His miracles performed before them. The repetitions of Celsus, unfortunately, force us to resort to the same repetitions, since we fear that we might be accused of deliberately omitting some of his objections. Thus, following the order of the material in his work, we must again bring forward the following objection already proposed. “If,” says Celsus, “Jesus did not convince anyone during His life, then wouldn’t it be too stupid, after the death of Jesus, for any lover, at his own discretion, to present as many believers as he pleases?” If a correct conclusion is to be drawn, then our opponent should have said this: since even after the death of Jesus so many are persuaded to believe in Him not only by those who want, but by those who are willing and have the power (to this conviction), then does it not seem even more reasonable to assert that Jesus during His earthly life acquired an even more significant number of followers due to the great power of His words and deeds? XLVII. After this, Celsus asks a question and forces us to answer it. He asks: “What, exactly, made you consider this (Jesus) the Son of God?” And he forces us to answer: “we came to such a recognition after we learned about His condemnation, which was aimed at overthrowing the father of vice.” But in fact, thousands of other reasons led us to this recognition, of which we have so far presented only the most insignificant part. If God helps, we will use these grounds not only to refute the so-called “True Word” of Celsus, but also in many other cases. And in response to our answer that we really “consider Jesus the Son of God because He was condemned,” Celsus asks a (new) question: “But, he says, many other people were condemned, and their suffering was no less shameful?” In this case, Celsus acts in the same way as those especially base enemies of our teaching who, based on the fact that Jesus was crucified, consider themselves entitled to draw the conclusion that we supposedly honor (τὸ σέβειν) all who were crucified. XLVIII. Unable to refute the miracles of Jesus, which are narrated in Scripture, Celsus more than once declared them to be the result of sorcery. And we, for our part, to the extent possible, have also repeatedly expressed our opinion on this matter. But in this place (of his work) Celsus ascribes to us such an answer. “We supposedly consider (Jesus) to be the Son of God because He healed the lame and the blind.” At the same time, he adds: “and you also say that he raised the dead.” Indeed, He healed the lame and the blind, which is why we consider Him the Messiah (Χριστὸν) and the Son of God, and we are convinced of this from the prophetic Scriptures. “Then,” it says here, “the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer” (Isa. 35:5, 6). He also raised the dead, and among the compilers of the Gospels these stories are by no means a work of fantasy. This is clear from the consideration that if Scripture offered fictitious tales, then in this case it would rather speak of a significant number of those resurrected, and it would leave them to rest in their tombs for a longer time. But Scripture, on the contrary, does not allow suspicion of fiction, since it speaks only about a small number (of those resurrected), namely: about the daughter of the leader of the synagogue, to whom Jesus addressed with special and wonderful words: “she is not dead, but sleeps” (Luke 8:49-56; Matt. 9:23-26; Mark 5:35-43), - with such words that cannot be addressed to all the dead; about the widow’s only son, upon whose sight He took pity and whom He then resurrected, stopping the bearers of the dead man (Luke 7:11–17), and about the third one – Lazarus, who had already been in the tomb for four days (John 11:38–44). On this matter, in the face of right-thinking people, and especially in the face of the Jew, I cannot help but make the following remark. Just as in the days of Elisha the prophet there were many lepers, and not one of them was healed except Neman the Syrian (2 Kings 5:14; cf. Luke 4:27); how in the days of Elijah the prophet there lived many widows, and he was not sent to any of them, with the exception of the widow from Zarephath of Sidon (1 Kings 17:9; cf. Luke 4:25, 26), since only she, by the judgment of God, was considered worthy of the miracle performed by the prophet over the loaves (1 Kings 17:11-16): in the same way in the days of Jesus it was many were dead, but only a few of them were raised, namely those whom the Word knew to be capable of resurrection. And these miracles of the Lord were supposed to not only transform known truths, but at the same time attract many hearts to the wonderful teaching of the Gospel. I could also say that Jesus' disciples performed even greater signs than the tangible signs He did - and this is in accordance with Jesus' own promise (John 14:12). So now the eyes of the blind in spirit are constantly being opened; and the ears, previously closed to the teaching of virtue, began to readily listen to the teaching about God and the blessed life in God; many formerly had a limp, as Scripture expresses it, in the walk of the inner man (ἔσω ἀνθρώπου) (Rom. 7:22), but now that faith has cured them, they began to walk quickly and not even at the usual speed (οὐχ ἁπλῶς), but like a deer (Acts 3:8; cf. Isa. 35:6), this enemy of the snake, to whom the poison of the vipers does not bring the slightest harm. Even these lame, after their healing, receive from Jesus “the power to step” with their previously lame feet on snakes and scorpions of wickedness and, in general, on every power of the enemy, and at the same time, while stepping, suffer no harm (Luke 10:19). They have already become so strong that no wickedness, no demonic poison can harm them. XLIX. Jesus warns His disciples not against sorcerers in general, not against those people who promise that they can perform certain miracles - after all, there was, in fact, no need for such a warning to the disciples - but against those who try to pass themselves off as God’s anointed ones, and try to attract Jesus’ disciples with all sorts of false actions to their side. We find precisely such warnings in His following words: “Then if anyone tells you: “Here is Christ” or “there,” do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I told you in advance. So, if they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go out; “Behold, He is in the hidden rooms,” do not believe. For just as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:23–27). Also in another “place” he said: “Many will say to Me on that day: “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? and was it not in Your name that they cast out demons? and did they not perform many miracles in Your name? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you; Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:22; Luke 13:26–27)! Celsus, trying to equate the miracles of Jesus with the witchcraft common among people, makes the following speech: “Oh, light and truth! He Himself clearly proclaims in His own words, as your writings also report, that in the last days others will appear among you who will perform the same miracles, and these will be bad people and sorcerers. He also speaks of a certain Satan, who will surpass them in performing similar (miracles); Moreover, He Himself does not deny that all these miracles do not at all serve as proof of Divine power, but constitute the acts of the evil ones (people). Prompted by the power of truth, He thus revealed the deceptions of others and at the same time presented accusations against Himself. And in fact, isn’t it a violation of justice to recognize, on the basis of the same actions, one as God and others as deceivers? But why should other people, rather than this Jesus, be considered villains for the same deeds, especially if we mean His own testimony? After all, according to his own saying, all miracles do not serve as evidence of the Divine nature, but rather expose deceivers and scoundrels.” Notice with what obvious malicious intent Celsus distorts the meaning of words here! The words of Jesus, spoken by him regarding the future performers of “signs and wonders,” contain a completely different meaning, and not the one that the Jew tells them in Celsus in his chatter. After all, if Jesus had simply urged his disciples to beware of people posing as performers of miracles, and had not inserted a comment about what exactly these (imaginary miracle workers) would say about themselves, then, indeed, Celsus’ suspicion would still be appropriate. But Jesus wants to warn us against such people who pretend to be Christ, which, in fact, sorcerers do not even resort to. Since these (false Christs), during their evil life, as He says (Matt. 7:22), nevertheless, in the name of Jesus they will perform some miracles and cast out demons from people, then in view of this very circumstance, I dare say, sorcery is most decisively excluded in those about whom we are talking here, all suspicion is eliminated in relation to them and, on the contrary, the Divinity of Christ is affirmed, as well as the Divinity of His disciples. After all, it is possible that someone, using the name of Jesus, and, perhaps, under the influence of some force, will falsely pretend to be Christ, will ghostly perform the same miracles as Christ, and likewise others in the name of Jesus will ghostly perform the same thing and bury them in the same way as His true disciples do. L. And Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, depicts exactly how it will once be revealed that “the man of sin, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above everything that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the church of God, showing himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). “And now,” he again says to the Thessalonians, “you know what does not allow him to be revealed in due time. For the mystery of iniquity is already in action, but it will not be accomplished until the one who now restrains is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the spirit of His mouth and destroy by the manifestation of His coming, whose coming, according to the work of Satan, will be (ἐστιν) with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception of those who are perishing” (2 Thess. 2:6-10). He also offers a reason why the wicked will be given the opportunity to appear on earth. He says this: “because they did not accept the love of the truth for their salvation. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, so that they will believe a lie, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but loved unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:10-12). Let them now tell us what, in fact, in the words of the Gospel or the Apostle can give reason to suspect that sorcery was predicted in this place? If anyone wishes, he can also read Daniel’s prophecy, which speaks exactly the same about the Antichrist (Dan. 7:23–26). But Celsus distorts the words of Jesus and attributes to him something that He, in fact, never said, namely, that “others will come who will perform the same miracles as He—bad men and deceivers.” Just as the power of the Egyptian spellcasters differed from the miraculous grace-filled power (παραδόξῳ χάριτι) that acted in Moses, how the deeds of the Egyptians in the end turned out to be the result of witchcraft, in contrast to the Divine deeds of Moses: in the same way, the deeds of the Antichrists and those who wanted to perform similar miracles as those of the disciples of Jesus turn out to be - as he says - with false signs and wonders, powerful in all unrighteous deception for those who are going to destruction, while the deeds of Christ and His disciples had as their fruit not deception, but the salvation of souls. And where can one find such a person who would consciously consider the improvement of life and the gradual reduction of wickedness to be the result of deception? LI. Celsus referred to Scripture in this case and put the words into the mouth of Jesus that “some Satan would commit the same acts.” But Celsus, in fact, exaggerates when he claims that Jesus is thereby asserting that there is nothing Divine in these acts, but that, on the contrary, they contain the deeds of bad people. In this way he brings together things that have nothing in common with each other. Just as a wolf and a dog, a turtledove and a dove, despite the similarity in voice and appearance, at the same time do not belong to the same genus, so in the same way the power of God in its manifestation has nothing in common with what constitutes a work of witchcraft. We can also say the following against the malicious interpretation of Celsus. The question arises: can evil spirits, at least through witchcraft, produce miracles, but the Divine and blessed nature cannot perform any miracle? Does human life really contain only evil and cannot combine anything good? In my opinion, as a general proposition, it must be recognized that wherever something bad is hidden under the guise of good, there is always good in contrast to evil. In the same way, along with those phenomena that occur from sorcery, in life there must also absolutely be such phenomena that occur through Divine power. One is a consequence of the other: one must either reject both and not accept either of them, or, in the case of admitting one of them, especially evil, one must also admit the presence of good. Whoever admits the existence of phenomena produced by sorcery, and at the same time rejects such phenomena in which the Divine power is manifested, is, in my opinion, like a person who, admitting false conclusions (σοφίσματα) and probable reasons (λόγοι πιθανοί), - which, however, do not contain the truth, but are still not devoid of the meaning of apparent truth - at the same time he asserts that people have no truth at all, no dialectics alien to false conclusions. And since we admit that the activity of Divine power must also appear in people, since there is witchcraft and sorcery performed by evil demons, who, through special spells, begin to act in a bewitching way and are assistants for sorcerers: then why don’t we pay serious attention to the life and morals of those people who present themselves as performers of miracles, why, looking at the actions and consequences of these miracles, do we not investigate whether they bring harm to people or serve to improving their lives? Undoubtedly, in this way we can reach the consciousness of who exactly commits such acts with the help of evil spirits through all kinds of spells and sorcery, and who, on the contrary, stands on a pure and holy path and is not only in soul and spirit, but, as I think, in body, united with God and, filled with the Divine spirit, performs such acts for the benefit of people, thus arranging their conversion to faith in the true God. In a word, leaving aside any prejudice in relation to miracles, we should take into account who performs them with a good intention and who with a bad one, so that in this way we have the opportunity to revere all phenomena, accept them not all equally as Divine acts, but at the same time not treat them all with contempt without any distinction. If this must be done in relation to miracles, then is it not obvious that Moses and Jesus carried out, with the help of Divine power, all those events that are attributed to them in Scripture, since all the nations were united together after their signs? Actually, wickedness and witchcraft could not form such a common people who abandoned the worship not only of statues and works of human hands, but also of every created being in general and turned to God - the beginningless basis of all things. LII. Since in this case the speaker is a Jew, to whom Celsus puts into his mouth the above statements, we turn to him with the following words: why, my dear, in those miracles that, according to the testimony of your writings, God performed through Moses, do you see an act of Divine power? Why are you trying to take them under your protection against those who are trying to humiliate them and put them on the same level with what the Egyptian sages performed through sorcery, and at the same time, in the miracles performed, by your own admission, by Jesus, you do not see anything Divine? How is it that you imitate the Egyptians, your own enemies, in this way? If the result of the miracles performed by Moses, namely the education of this entire people, serves as proof of the fact that in this case God participated, who made it possible for this education (of the people) to be realized under Moses, then in relation to Jesus, does not a similar conclusion 232 turn out to be even more obvious, since Jesus accomplished a greater work than Moses? This latter, in fact, accepted the descendants of Abraham, who zealously protected circumcision and other customs from the time of Abraham from generation to generation from pagan influence - he brought these Jews out of Egypt when they were most ready (to unite into one nation), and it was to them that he gave the Divine laws, in which you also believe. This same (Jesus) accomplished something greater: He, on the basis of the already formed social system and fatherly customs, on the basis of living conditions established according to the known norms of the law, dared to introduce a new system of social life according to the laws of the Gospel (τὴν κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πολιτείαν). And if Moses considered necessary miracles, which, according to Scripture, he performed in order to gain faith not only among the elders, but also among the people, then why did Jesus, in order to gain faith among the people, already accustomed to demanding signs and wonders, should not have needed such miracles that could surpass in their greatness and divinity the miracles of Moses and thereby, on the one hand, deviate the people from the fictions and human traditions that prevailed among Jews, and, on the other hand, force him to admit that the One who expressed such a doctrine and performed such deeds was greater than all the prophets? And, indeed, shouldn’t He stand above the prophets, Whom the prophets proclaimed as the Messiah (Χριστὸς) and the Savior of the human race? LIII. Everything that the Jew in Celsus expresses against those who believe in Jesus can, with equal right, be offered as an accusation against Moses. If Jesus, according to Celsus, is a deceiver, then Moses is the same deceiver: the accusations directed against one also apply to the other. For example, the Jew in Celsus says regarding Christ: “This is how strong the light of truth is! Jesus clearly speaks of this in his own words, as your writings also testify to the same thing: in fact, others can come to you and perform similar miracles, while they are actually bad people and deceivers.” But the same thing can be noticed by a Jew, any person who does not believe in the legends about Moses, any Egyptian, in a word, anyone can say about Moses: “Ah, that’s how strong the light of truth is! In his own words, Moses clearly and expressively proclaims, as your writings also show, that others can come to you and perform similar miracles - bad people and deceivers.” After all, it is written in your law: “If a prophet or a dreamer arises among you and presents you with a sign or a miracle, and the sign or miracle about which he spoke to you comes true, and moreover says: “Let us go after other gods whom you do not know and let us serve them,” then do not listen to the words of this prophet or this dreamer” (Deut. 13:1-3), and so on. If you have a desire to slander the teachings of Jesus, then, of course, you will say this: “He (Jesus) means some kind of Satan who performs similar miracles.” But if you want to apply this passage to Moses, you will say this: “He (Moses) means a prophet who in a dream sees himself performing similar miracles.” And just as the Jew in Celsus says about Jesus that “He himself did not deny that there is nothing Divine in these deeds, that they, on the contrary, are the works of bad people”: so in the same way, anyone who does not have faith in the works of Moses can express the same words addressed to Moses as “Moses does not deny that there is nothing Divine in these deeds, but that, on the contrary, they constitute works bad people." He will do the same in relation to him and will say that Moses, being under the influence of the truth, at the same time discovered the actions of others and exposed the actions in relation to himself. Of course, a Jew can also ask the following question: “Isn’t it insolence to consider one as God and others as deceivers on the basis of the same deeds?” But such a question from a Jew can be answered by applying the above sayings to Moses: “Isn’t it impudent to consider one a prophet and servant of God, and the rest as deceivers, on the basis of the same actions?” But with all the above objections, which, as I found out, apply equally to both Jesus and Moses, Celsus is not satisfied in this place and adds to them the following words: “why,” he asks, “on the basis of these very actions, it is necessary to consider others as bad people, rather than this (Jesus), whom they use as a witness?” To this, for our part, we will give the following answer: but why, in fact, on the basis of these acts, should I consider not Moses to be bad people, but rather those in whom, after the prohibition of Moses, I no longer dare to have confidence in view of the fact that they showed signs and wonders - is it not because he transferred the blame to others for their signs and wonders? Celsus also makes some additional additions to this same objection for the purpose, of course, to give it even more strength and expressiveness. He says: “these (miracles), as He himself agrees, are not at all indicators of the Divine nature, but rather of some kind of deceivers and villains.” Who is this: “He”? In your opinion, Jew, this is, of course, Jesus; but another, who can raise the same objections and accusations against you, will find in this “he” already Moses. Liv. The next question with which the Jew Celsus addresses those representatives of his people who accepted the Gospel teaching (τῷ λόγῳ), he also directs against us; however, we must remember that from the very beginning he had us in mind. He asks: “What made you turn to Him, was it not His prediction that He would rise again after His death?” And this objection, like the previous ones, can also be directed against Moses. And in relation to him we can ask the following question: “what led you to faith, perhaps the fact that he wrote the following about his death: “And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he was buried in a valley in the land of Moab opposite Bethpeor, and no one knows the place of his burial even to this day." (Deut. 34:5-6) After all, just as the Jew slandered Jesus because He predicted His future Resurrection, which would occur after death, so in the same way, in application to Moses, one can make the same objection and say to him: here is Moses in Deuteronomy - and this book belongs to him - only for this reason he wrote: “no one knows the place of burial even to this day” in order to gain respect for himself and fame thanks to the remark that nothing is known to the human race about this place of his burial. LV. After this, the Jew addresses his compatriots who believed in Jesus with the following speech: “Well, we, perhaps, will believe you that this prediction really happened. But are there not many other persons who perform similar miracles in order to bring their simple-minded listeners to faith and derive a certain benefit from deception? Similar things are told about Zamolxis 233, the slave of Pythagoras, (how he performed miracles) among the Scythians. This is how Pythagoras himself acted in Italy, and Rampsinitis 234 in Egypt. They say about the latter that he played dice with Ceres in hell and took out a golden wiping pad that she had given him. This is how they acted: Orpheus 235 among the Odrysians, Protesilaus 236 in Thessaly, Hercules 237 in Tenar and Theseus 238. But here is the question that needs to be resolved: did someone really die and then at some point be resurrected with the same body, or are you convinced that all these are fables and inventions and that stories about others should be considered fables, but that you, on the contrary, have quite decently and convincingly found the denouement of the play, when you tell about the voice from the cross at the last breath, and about the earthquake, and about darkness? You claim that during His life He could not help Himself, but that after His death He rose again and showed signs of execution and traces of nails on His hands; but who saw it? A woman who was - as you yourself claim - in a frenzy, and someone else who was an expert in the same art of sorcery! This latter, by a certain predisposition, perhaps saw all this in a dream, and, thanks to his infatuation with an empty dream, he imagined in his imagination what he desired. At least, this phenomenon happens quite often to many people. But maybe - and this is what I believe most of all - He, through this miracle, simply wanted to amaze other people and, through such a lie, give others a reason for a similar deception! Since in this case it is the Jew who offers this objection, we intend to build our defense of our Jesus in such a way that it is the Jew who appears as our adversary; Moreover, we apply everything that he says to Moses and thus address him with such words. “How many people, one wonders, were there who performed the same miracles as Moses in order to deceive the common people and profit from the deception?” You point to Zamolxis and Pythagoras, but to cite examples of such miracle workers is more likely to be characteristic of someone who does not believe in Moses at all, and in any case, not of a Jew who does not feel a special inclination to study Greek legends. And the Egyptian, who does not have confidence in the miracles of Moses, of course, can more convincingly refer to Rhampsinitis and say that the legend that this (Rampsinitis) descended into hell and there played dice with Ceres and then received from her a golden wiper, which he used as proof of the reality of his stay in hell and return from there, is much more credible - in any case, he will believe all this more than Moses’ own story, which recorded that he “entered into darkness where God is” (Ex. 20:21), that he alone, preferably before others, approached God. After all, it is indeed written by Moses: “Let Moses alone draw near to the Lord, but let them not draw near” (Ex. 24:2). As disciples of Jesus and we now address the Jew who knows how to offer such things, we will express the following answer: you yourself, condemning our faith in Jesus, see that you yourself do not have to defend yourself in the face of the Egyptians and Greeks and make a speech before them. What will you say if they transfer all the accusations that you brought against Jesus to Moses? Yes, even if you take the trouble to defend Moses, then against your own desire, with all your positions expressed in defense of Moses, you will only prove that Jesus, compared to Moses, has greater Divinity 239. LVI. It should be noted that both the descent into hell and the return from there, in a word, everything that the legends about the heroes tell about, Celsus presents to the Jew as deception and delusion. He thinks that the heroes actually became invisible for some time and hid from the eyes of all people, but then they showed up again and thus seemed to return from the underworld. At least, regarding the action of Orpheus among the Odrysians, and the action of Protesilaus in Thessaly, and the action of Hercules in Tenar, and, finally, the action of Theseus, one has to adhere to precisely this opinion, as clearly follows from his own words. If all this is so, then from here we can draw the following conclusion: everything that history tells us about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead can in no way be compared with these fables. All these heroes, about whom there are local legends, could, of course, of their own free will hide from view and return again to those whom they left, if only they decided to do so. But Jesus was crucified in front of all the Jews, and His body was taken down from the cross in front of all the people. How, one may ask, was it possible for Him to act in this case like those heroes who, according to legend, descended into the underworld and returned from there again? In my opinion, as a basis for solving the question of why exactly Jesus suffered death on the cross, one can primarily use the same legends about heroes who, according to popular belief, descended into the underworld. Let us assume that the end of Jesus’ life was so common and unnoticeable that His death was even unknown to the entire Jewish people; Let us also assume that He did indeed rise from the dead, but would it be appropriate in this case to say about Him the same thing that is supposedly said about the heroes? In favor of the position that Jesus was crucified, in addition to all other reasons, one can also add the consideration that He died on the cross in full view of everyone, so that, in fact, no one can say that He deliberately hid from the eyes of people, as if He only seemed to die, while in reality He did not even die, as if He, by His new appearance at the moment He desired, gave reason to believe in the miraculousness of His Resurrection from the dead. Further, the complete devotion of the disciples to His teaching and the preaching of this teaching, under the conditions of life at that time fraught with the greatest danger, is, in my opinion, a clear and striking proof of His resurrection. If only the disciples had invented the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, then they would not have preached about Him with such insistence: meanwhile, they not only taught others to treat death with contempt, but they themselves, first of all, showed an example of such a contemptuous attitude towards it. LVII. Pay attention to the blindness of the Jew in Celsus, in which he considers it impossible for anyone to rise from the dead in his true body. The Jew puts it this way: “we still need to investigate whether anyone has ever really died and been resurrected with a true body.” But a Jew cannot say this, as long as he trusts what is written in the Third and Fourth Books of Kings about those two boys, one of whom was resurrected by Elijah, and the other by Elisha (1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 4:34). And I think that Jesus came to the Jews, and not to any other people, precisely because it was the Jews who were accustomed to miracles, and they, by comparing what they considered trustworthy with what was done by Him (Jesus) and was told about Him, could come to the recognition that He, for whom and through whom great and wonderful deeds were performed, was superior (μείζων) of all those (prophets). LVIII. After the Jew brought up these supposed miraculous acts and imaginary cases of resurrection from the dead, which are narrated in pagan legends, he asks the Jews who turned to faith in Jesus the following question: “Or are you in the conviction that everything conveyed by others on this subject is a fable and fiction, while for you, on the contrary, His voice from the cross at the moment of His dying breath - in a word, all of this is a sad incident given a plausible and credible outcome?” To this we will answer the Jew: we consider the stories you cite, indeed, to be fables and fiction; but what the Holy Books tell, which are the same for you and us and which you accept and honor in the same way as we do - all these, according to our statement, are not fabulous tales. We consider the facts of the resurrection from the dead that we read about there to be true, and not deception; in the same way, we believe that Jesus has truly risen, as He Himself predicted and as the prophets announced. And His very resurrection from the dead is even more wonderful than the resurrection of others, because these latter were resurrected only by the prophets - Elijah and Elisha; this same (Jesus) was resurrected by His heavenly Father, and not by the prophets. That is why His resurrection was also more fruitful than the resurrection of those people. Indeed, what a blessing the resurrection of the youths, called to life by Elijah and Elisha, brought with it; how can it compare with those fruits that were given to the world through the resurrection of Jesus, after it was announced and everyone believed him with the assistance of Divine power (δυνάμει θείᾳ)? LIX. He also considers earthquakes and darkness to be fiction. But on this matter, as far as was in our power, we already gave our answer earlier 240, when we cited the testimony of Phlegon, according to whose story all these events really happened in those days when the Savior suffered. To the further words of Celsus, that “Jesus during His life could not help Himself, and only when He became dead, He was resurrected and showed signs of suffering and marks of nails on His hands,” we answer by asking what this means: “Could not help Himself?” If here we mean help in virtue 241, then we positively affirm that Jesus Himself contained such help to a sufficient extent (πάνυ ἐπήρκεσεν). After all, He said nothing and did nothing that would be worthy of blame; on the contrary, (He) in fact, “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers, silent” (Is. 53:7), and the Gospel testifies that He did not open His mouth (Matt. 26:62, 63, 27:12, 14; Mark 14:61, 15:5). If Celsus accepts this expression in the sense that Jesus could not help Himself in things indifferent (μέσων) and bodily, then we will refer to our opinion already given and based on the Gospels that Jesus voluntarily exposed Himself to all these (disasters). Celsus, on the basis of the Gospel, as we have already seen, further says that Jesus, after His resurrection from the dead, showed signs of His suffering and marks of nails on His hands, and at the same time poses the following question: “Who saw this?” Referring to Scripture, which says that Mary Magdalene was an eyewitness to these events, Celsus slanderes her and says: “yes, this woman, as you yourself claim, was half crazy (πάροιστρος).” Since, according to the testimony of Scripture, not only she alone, but also others saw the resurrected Jesus, then in view of this, the Jew of Celsus, pouring out his anger on them as well, makes the following remark: “yes, maybe someone else (saw) from among the representatives of magic!” LX. Then, apparently based on the assumption that the image of a dead person can be imagined so vividly in the soul that it is able to consider this dead person alive, Celsus, from his Epicurean point of view, makes the following addition to his speech: “perhaps someone received a disposition to dream and, being carried away by an empty dream, imagined in his soul what he desired, and then told others about it - and this,” he says, “happens to very many.” Celsus thinks that in this case he is offering something very profound, but in fact he is proving, in fact, the necessity of the doctrine (δόγματος) that the soul of the dead continues to live. And in those who adhere to such a doctrine, belief in the immortality or, in extreme cases, in the posthumous existence (διαμονῆς) of the soul is not without foundation; and Plato in his treatise on the soul 242 says that some, even after their death, can see "shadow-like phantoms" hovering around their tombs. And these ghosts, having their origin in the souls of the dead (people), in any case have their basis in some real essence. This essence is the soul, which then lives 243, according to the Greeks, in the so-called brilliant, light-like body. As for Celsus, he does not agree to accept this opinion and does not attach any importance to it. He only admits that in reality some people dream and with their troubled spirits imagine things the way they themselves desire and can imagine them. That such a phenomenon is observed in a dream can be believed on reasonable grounds; but that this happens in a waking state is completely incredible and can only be assumed in people who are beside themselves and experiencing a state of melancholy. This last circumstance, of course, Celsus also knew, since he mentions a woman who was in a frenzy, but in Scripture, in fact, there is not a single word that could give Celsus the basis for constructing such an accusation. LXI. So, according to Celsus, the appearance of Jesus after His death with the marks of the wounds He received on the cross was only a manifestation of the imagination, and not the actual presence of a wounded body. Whereas, according to the teaching of the Gospel - from which even Celsus accepts some parts, although only in order to direct his objections against them, and only distrusts some parts of it - according to the teaching of this Gospel, Jesus called one of His disciples to Himself precisely because he did not want to believe and considered a miracle an unrealizable dream. He believed the story of the woman who said that she saw Him; he did not doubt the possibility of the fact that the soul of the deceased could appear, meanwhile, he considered it impossible that Jesus could rise with a body that was similar to His former body. That is why he did not simply say: “if I don’t see, then I won’t believe”; and he adds to these words the remark: “If I do not put my finger into the wounds of the nails and put my hand into His side, then I will not believe.” And Thomas said this because he considered it impossible for the body of a soul to appear to the sensory eye while retaining its previous form throughout: ... And in volume, and beautiful gaze, and voice, And exactly the same clothes on the body 244. And so Jesus, calling Thomas to Himself, said to him: “Put your finger here and look at My hands, reach out your hand and put it in My side; and do not be an unbeliever, but a believer” (John 20:27)! LXII. And it was quite natural that the events that He predicted and which, by the way, included the resurrection - the works that He did, the suffering that He endured - caused the occurrence of this greatest miracle of miracles. Even in the prophecy on behalf of Jesus it was predicted: “My flesh will rest in hope; for You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will You allow Your holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 15:9, 10). The body of Jesus after His resurrection occupies, as it were, the middle between the dense body that He had before suffering, and the state in which the soul appears after separation from this body. That is why it happened that while “after eight days His disciples were again in the house, and Thomas with them. Jesus came when the doors were locked, stood in the midst of them and said: Peace be with you! Then he says to Thomas, “Put your finger here” (John 20:26–27) and so on. And in the Gospel of Luke (it is said) that when Simon and Cleopas were talking among themselves about all that had happened to them, Jesus approached them and went with them. But their eyes were delayed, and they did not recognize Him. Then He said to them: What is this talk that you have among yourselves during the journey? And when their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, He disappeared from them, just as Scripture speaks about it in exactly the same terms (Luke 24:14, 15). So, although Celsus compares the appearances of Jesus with ordinary visions, and those who saw Him after the resurrection with those who experience a state of dreams, but, however, reasonable and prudent researchers will see in these events a miracle, moreover, a special miracle (τὸ παραδοξότερον). LXIII. After this, Celsus, continuing his slander against Scripture, offers such objections that in no case can be ignored. He says: “if Jesus really wanted to reveal His Divine power, then He had to appear to His enemies and to the judge who condemned Him, in general, to all people.” Indeed, we know from the Gospel that Jesus after His resurrection did not appear openly to everyone, as it was before. In the Acts (of the Apostles) we read that He appeared to His disciples for forty days and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). The Gospels, on the contrary, say that He did not constantly move with them, that He only appeared among them eight days later, with the doors closed (cf. John 20, and then another time in a similar way. Concerning the fact that He did not appear openly, as it had previously been in the days preceding His passion, we also learn from Paul, who at the end of his First Epistle to the Corinthians writes the following: “For I taught you from the beginning what I also received, that is, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, some have died; then he appeared to Jacob, and also to all the Apostles; and after all he appeared to me, as to a certain monster” (1 Cor. 15:3, 5-8). So, something especially great, worthy of wonder and important - not only for simple believers, but even for those advanced in knowledge - is to indicate on this point the reason why Jesus, after His resurrection from the dead, no longer appeared in the same way as before. But in the present work, which is intended to overthrow the objections raised against Christians and their faith, we can, as is understandable, use only a few from a whole series of proofs and, having presented them thoroughly, then consider whether our refutation can satisfy the readers. LXIV. Although Jesus was a single being, 245 there was still much in Him, which was the result of the diversity of points of view from which He could be viewed; He did not appear to all those who saw Him in the same light and not from the same side. And that, indeed, with a careful look one could detect plurality, this is clear from the expressions such as: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6); “I am the bread” (John 6:35); “I am the door” (John 10:9), and from many other expressions. And that not everyone who saw Jesus had the same act of contemplation, but that, on the contrary, it differed depending on the state of the cognitive powers of each individual person - this will be clear if we remember that He took with Him to the top of the mountain on which he was to be transfigured, not all the Apostles, but only Peter, James and John, since only these alone were then able to contemplate His greatness and be able to comprehend the appearance of Moses and Elijah in their greatness, and also listen to their verbs and the heavenly voice coming from the clouds. And first He ascended the mountain, where only the disciples followed Him, and where He spoke with them about the beatitudes, and only when evening came, at the foot of the mountain, He began to heal the sick who were brought to Him, and began to free them from various sufferings and ailments: I do not think that to these sufferers who sought healing from Him, He seemed exactly the same as to those strong in His (moral) strength who could ascend with Nim to the mountain. And if He deliberately explained to His disciples those parables that He spoke to the common people, refraining from revealing to them their mysterious meaning, then this is because those who listened to the explanation of the parables were more capable of listening to them compared to those who heard the parables without appropriate explanation, and also had more adapted eyes, and not only spiritual, but, as I think, also bodily eyes. And that He did not always appear to be one and the same (in His external appearances) is proven by the words: “Whomever I kiss, He is the same” (Matt. 26:48), - the words with which, intending to betray Jesus, Judas addressed the crowd of people accompanying him, who did not seem to recognize Him. It is precisely this circumstance 246, as I think, that the Savior Himself indicates when he says: “Every day I sat with you, teaching in the church, and you did not take Me” (Matthew 26:55). Since we have just such faith in Jesus and not only in His Godhead, which was in Him and which He revealed only to a few, but also in His body, the appearance of which He changed when and before whom it pleased Him; then, in view of this, we say this: we could all see Jesus until He had yet conquered the “principalities and powers” ​​(Col. 2:15), until He died “to sin” (Rom. 6:2); when He defeated the “principalities and powers” ​​and did not begin to combine in Himself anything that the eyes of every person would be able to contemplate, He ceased to be visible to everyone who could previously see Him. If in this way, after His resurrection from the dead, He did not appear to everyone, then He did this precisely because He took into account their inability. LXV. And what do I say: “he did not appear to everyone”? After all, He was not constantly even with His Apostles and disciples; He did not always appear even to them, since they were not yet able to continuously contemplate His presence. After all, His Divinity, from the time He completed His dispensation, began to shine with even more dazzling brilliance, 247 so that in this state only Peter, this rock (Κηφᾶς), this kind of “firstfruits” of the Apostles (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:15), and after him the twelve, when Matthew took the place of Judas (Acts. 1:26); and after all these He appeared one day to another five hundred brothers, then to James, then, in addition to the twelve, to all the other Apostles, among whom, perhaps, we should also include seventy disciples; after all, He appeared to Paul, who, presenting himself as prematurely born (ἐκτρώματι) (1 Cor. 15:6-8), of course, knew why He expressed himself this way: “to me, the least of all saints, this grace was given” (Eph. 3:8). The expressions "least" and "prematurely born" probably have the same meaning. So, if there is no reason to reproach Jesus for the fact that He did not take all the Apostles with Him to the top of the mountain, but only the three mentioned above at the moment when His Transfiguration was about to take place and when He wanted to show the radiance of His clothes and the glory of Moses and Elijah, who were talking with Him: then there can be no basis for reproaching the Apostolic Scriptures with the fact that Jesus after His The Resurrection did not appear to everyone, but only to those whose eyes, as far as He knew, were capable of beholding His Resurrection. I think that my positions are confirmed by the following place (of Scripture), where it is said about Jesus: “For this purpose Christ died and rose again, and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9). From these words it is clear that Jesus died to rule over the dead, and rose again to rule not only over the dead, but also over the living. And by these dead, over whom Christ rules, the Apostle undoubtedly means those precisely about whom he says in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: “for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible”; and by the living (he means) those who must change, they are distinguished from those dead who must awaken. About these (the living) he cites the following saying: “and we will change,” the same saying that comes after the expression: “the dead will rise first.” He offers the same division in slightly different expressions in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, where he speaks, on the one hand, about the dead, and on the other, about the living. He says: “I do not want to leave you, brothers, in ignorance about the dead, so that you do not grieve like others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not warn those who have died” (1 Thessalonians 4:13–15). We have already shown how this passage should be understood in our explanation of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. LXVI. One should not be surprised that not everyone who believed in Jesus saw Him after the Resurrection; after all, Paul also writes in his letter to the Corinthians: “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), - obviously, the Corinthians were also unable to comprehend and understand more sublime objects. The following words contain a similar thought: “for you were not yet able, and even now you are not yet able, because you are still carnal” (1 Cor. 3:2, 3). Thus, Scripture, which is entirely imbued with Divine wisdom, tells that Jesus, before his suffering, appeared to many people in general, although not always; after suffering, he no longer appeared according to the example of previous phenomena (ὁμοίως), but with a certain choice, thus giving everyone their due. And just as, according to the testimony of Scripture, God appeared to Abraham or some other saint, just as this phenomenon was not continuously ongoing, but occurred only from time to time and just as He did not appear to everyone: in the same way, the Son of God (τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ), one must think, with the same wise foresight chose those to whom he appeared, acting in this case in the likeness of those manifestations of God (τὸν θεὸν). LXVII. Thus, as far as it was in our power and as the plan of this work allowed us to do, we gave an answer to the following objection of Celsus, which reads: “if Jesus really wanted to show His Divine greatness, then He would have to appear to His enemies and to the judge who condemned Him, in general to everyone without exception.” But there was no need for Jesus to appear either to the judge or to his enemies. After all, He wanted to spare both this judge and these enemies of His, so as not to strike them with the same blindness that the inhabitants of Sodom were struck at the moment when they wanted to abuse the beauty of the Angels, hospitably received in Lot’s house. On this occasion we read in the Scripture the following: “Then the men stretched out their hands and brought Lot into their house, and they locked the door (of the house); and the people who were at the entrance to the house were struck with blindness, from the least of them to the greatest, so that they were tormented in seeking the entrance” (Gen. 19:10, 11). And Jesus thus wanted to reveal His Divine power to everyone who could see it, and to the exact extent that he could do it. If He did not want to open up, then this happened, of course, only because He took into account the weakness of those people who were not yet able to see Him. That is why Celsus is completely in vain to say: “Jesus no longer had anything to fear from any of the people, since He even suffered death, after He, as you say, became God. And, of course, He was not sent from the very beginning to hide.” In fact, He was sent not only so that He could be known, but also so that He could make Himself into (some) mystery (λάθῃ). Even those who knew Him did not know about Him all that He was: and for them something remained hidden in Him, while for some He was completely unknowable. He opened the doors of “light” for those who were born sons of “darkness” and “night” and brought themselves to the point that they became sons of “day” and “light” (Cf. 1 Thess. 5:5; Luke 5:31, 32. Our Lord came as a good doctor, more for those burdened with sins than for the righteous. LXVIII. Now let's see what Celsus's Jew offers next. He says: “if all this 248 were to serve as proof of His Divinity, then He should have better immediately disappeared from the cross.” But all this seems to me similar to the chatter of people who, rejecting the teachings of Providence, build for themselves a world that is not at all similar to the actual order of things, and at the same time say: if the world were really the way we portray it, then it would be even better. But where their description revolves in the realm of existence accessible to observation (δυνατὰ), one can directly expose them in the fact that by their image they produce a worse world, depending on the (moral) state in which they find themselves; where their own images do not differ too much from the actual state of things, here they themselves prove that they desire what is impossible by the very nature of things. In a word, in both cases they put themselves in a ridiculous position. Now it is self-evident that it was impossible for Jesus, even with His Divine nature 249, to become invisible if He wished for it 250; this is clearly evident from everything that is said about Him in Scripture - at least for those people who do not try to accept only a certain part of Scripture in order on the basis of it to make an objection to the Christian faith (τοῦ λόγου), and at the same time do not recognize the other part of Scripture as mere fiction. We read in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus, after His Resurrection, “took bread,” that “He blessed, broke, and gave” to Simon and Cleopas; that after they accepted the bread, “their eyes were opened,” that “they recognized Him,” but that “He became invisible to them” (Luke 24:30, 31). LXIX. We also want to point out that in order to achieve the goal of His economy (τὴν οἰκονομίαν) it was not at all necessary for His body to suddenly disappear from the cross. A true and complete understanding of the events that happened to Jesus is not limited to the literal meaning of the historical tale alone. For those who pay some attention to the Scriptures, it is clearly revealed that in each of the historical tales the truth is hidden under the outer form of the symbol. Thus, the crucifixion of Jesus contains the truth, which is expressed in the words: “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:19); the same meaning can be deduced from the expression (of the Apostle): “But I do not want to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). And His death was necessary so that Scripture had the right to say: “For that He died, He died once for sin” (Rom. 6:10), and also in another place: “I am conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10) and in a third place: “If we died with Him, we will also live with Him” (2 Tim. 2:11). In the same way, His burial may be related to those people who become like Him in death, who, having been crucified with Him, died with Him. Paul also teaches us when he says: “We were buried with Him through baptism” (Rom. 6:4) and rose up with Him. And as for the legends of Scripture about burial, about the coffin, about the person who performed the burial, we hope to give a more detailed explanation of all this on other more convenient occasions, when there is an urgent need to talk about this matter. Now it will be enough to say only about the clean shroud in which the clean body of Jesus was to be wrapped, about the new tomb that Joseph hewed in the rock (Matthew 27:59, 60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53), and in which “no one has ever lay” (οὐδεὶς κείμενος) ( Luke 23:53), or, as John puts it, into which no one has yet been placed (ete'fh) (John 19:41). The question is, the agreement of the three Evangelists and their diligence with which they note that the coffin was carved or hewn out of the rock - all this cannot force anyone to examine the meaning of the circumstances described and see in them something remarkable, at least in indicating the news of the coffin, which Matthew and John talk about, as well as in the fact that in this very coffin there was not yet a single dead person, as we read about this in Luke and John. Decency demanded that He, who had nothing in common with the rest of the dead, who, on the contrary, even in his deadness showed signs of life in the fact of the flow of water and blood, who was, so to speak, a new dead man, if only because he was laid in a new coffin - decency itself, I repeat, demanded that he and the burial itself received in a particularly clean environment, in accordance with how His birth was the purest of any other birth, because He was conceived not from a mixture of the sexes, but from a Virgin. This purity during burial was symbolically indicated by the fact that His body was laid in a coffin, which was completely new, was not made of selected stones, did not consist of parts that had no natural unity among themselves, but was carved or hewn out of rock, which consisted of one whole piece and was not crushed anywhere. However, the explanation of these circumstances and the relationship of the recorded events to the truths that they indicate can be presented more expressively and better, on a more appropriate occasion, in a special essay. But if you even adhere to the literal meaning of the legend, then even then you can find the following definite meaning in it. After Jesus was condemned and suffered (execution through) hanging on the cross, He had to undergo at the same time everything that was a natural consequence (of this execution); He as a man had to undergo burial after He was killed as a man and died as a man. Let us even assume that in the legends of the Gospels the meaning is really conveyed that “Jesus seemed to suddenly disappear from the cross,” but even then Celsus and in general all non-believers would still turn the stories of Scripture into a bad side; they would still begin to slander and say: why did He disappear only after the crucifixion? Why didn't He do this suffering earlier? If in this way the enemies of Christianity learned from the Gospels that Jesus did not immediately disappear from the cross, and at the same time, against the (Gospel) word - which is not mistaken, but speaks only the truth - they think to bring the accusation that it supposedly admits that Jesus immediately disappeared from the cross, and this is precisely the interpretation Celsus considers worthy of great confidence: then what reason can they have for not recognizing His Resurrection, not believing that He solely of his own Willingly, with the doors locked, then he stood in the midst of his students, and another time, he distributed bread among his friends and then suddenly disappeared from their gaze after talking with them for some time? LXX. And what, exactly, prompted the Jew from Celsus to say that “Jesus hid himself”? This is what he says about Jesus: “And what messenger, who accepted a mission, instead of announcing the orders given to him, ever went into hiding”? But Jesus, in fact, did not hide; on the contrary, He addressed those who sought to seize Him in these words: “Every day I was with you in the church and taught; and you did not take me” (Mark 14:49). As for the further objections that Celsus attaches here, they, in fact, represent a repetition of what he had previously said, and we, for our part, considered them in exactly the same way, 251 so that in this case we can be satisfied with the previous reasoning. We also gave an answer to the following objection of Celsus, in which he says: “When Jesus was still in the flesh and no one believed Him, He persistently preached to everyone; after his resurrection from the dead, when He could have gained especially strong faith, He appeared only to one single woman and even to his close admirers, and even then in secret.” But it is not entirely true that He appeared to only one: in the Gospel of Matthew it is written (Matthew 28:1-2) that “After the Sabbath had happened, at dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the Angel of the Lord, who came down from heaven, came and rolled away the stone.” And a little further (Matthew 28:9) Matthew adds: “Jesus met them -” obviously the above-mentioned Marys - “and said: Rejoice! And they came up, grabbed His feet, and worshiped Him." Regarding the further objection of Celsus: “everyone was a witness to His (Jesus) suffering, but only a single person was a witness to His appearance after His resurrection,” we gave our answer in exactly the same way 252 when we refuted his accusations that “Jesus did not appear to everyone.” In this case we only intend to add that the human in His (personality) was visible to everyone, but the Divine - as I believe, not by connection, but by contrast with the other - was not accessible to everyone. Pay attention to how clearly Celsus contradicts himself. Previously he said that “Jesus appeared only to one single woman and to his close admirers, and then in secret”; and then he himself adds that everyone witnessed His suffering, but only a single person witnessed His resurrection, whereas, he concludes, exactly the opposite should have happened.” We, for our part, would like to hear what exactly, in his opinion, should have happened? In his view, exactly the opposite of what happened should have happened: everyone should have been witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, while only one would have been witnesses to His suffering. As far as can be concluded from his words, he wanted precisely that Jesus during His suffering would be seen by only one person, and after His resurrection by everyone: but in this way he admits something impossible and not even reasonable. Otherwise, it’s impossible to understand his words: “while exactly the opposite should have happened”? LXXI. Jesus also revealed to us who it was who sent Him in the following words: “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22), and in the words: “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” (ἐξηγήσατο) 253. He spoke about God and taught his true disciples what relates to faith in God. We find some of these speeches in Scripture; They give us the opportunity and reason to talk about God when we read: “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (1 John 1:5) and also in another place: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). There are many reasons why the Father sent Him (Jesus); and whoever wants to know them can turn to the Evangelists or to the prophets who spoke about Him; he will also find quite a few of them in the Apostles, especially in Paul. Jesus enlightens the pious and punishes sinners; but Celsus did not see this and presented the matter in such a way that “Jesus should supposedly enlighten the pious and sinners, and have mercy on those who repent of their sins.” LXXII. Then Celsus says: “If Jesus wanted to hide, then why did He listen to the voice from heaven that declared Him to be the Son of God? If He did not want to hide, then why did He endure suffering, why did He die?” With this objection, Celsus intends to show that Scripture falls into contradiction in its stories about Jesus; but at the same time he does not notice that Jesus did not want to reveal all his deeds to all casual spectators, but at the same time he did not want to completely hide them. That is why we do not find in Scripture any indication that the voice that came from heaven and declared Him to be the Son of God in the words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) was heard by all the people, as the Jew thinks in Celsus. And another voice, which was heard on the top of the mountain from the clouds, was heard only by those who climbed (up the mountain) with Him (Matthew 17:5). After all, such a Divine voice has such a property that it can only be heard by those whom the speaker wants to give the opportunity to hear (him). However, I do not want to say that the voice of God, about which Scripture narrates, did not produce any movement in the air at all, or that it was not an air vibration, or that it was something else, but not a voice in the ordinary sense of the word, that therefore it could only be perceived by someone who has a more perfect and subtler ear, compared with ordinary, sensory hearing. Only because the speaker wants to make his voice audible not to everyone, this voice of God can only be heard by those who have more perfect hearing; meanwhile, anyone who suffers from spiritual deafness can no longer perceive the speeches of God. The above reasoning thus constitutes the answer to the question: “why did He allow a voice from heaven to be heard, which declared Him the Son of God?” As for the next question: “if Jesus did not want to hide, then why did He suffer, why did He die?” - then this question is sufficiently resolved by those provisions on suffering that we very thoroughly expressed in our previous discussions 254. LXXIII. Celsus's Jew, in his further objections, presents as a conclusion a position that in fact does not have sufficient grounds. From the fact that “Jesus, by his sufferings, seemed to want to instill in us contempt for death, it does not at all follow the conclusion that after His resurrection from the dead He should have openly called everyone to the light and instilled in them the reason for which He came.” After all, He called everyone to the light before, when He said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). And for what He came, we learn about this from Scripture - from those places where it is reported: a long speech about the beatitudes, the sermon that is contained in them, and those parables and conversations with which He addressed the scribes and Pharisees. The Gospel of John shows us the sublimity of the teachings of Jesus and His greatness, which is revealed not only in words, but also in deeds; and the rest of the Gospels show that “His word was with authority” (Luke 4:32; Matt. 7:28, 29; Mark 1:22) and that everyone marveled at this circumstance. LXXIV. In conclusion, the Jew Celsus adds the following words: “all these objections that we made to you, we extracted from your own books and we did not introduce a single new evidence into them; you contradict yourself." We have already shown that the Jew brings into his speeches against Jesus and against us a lot of crude nonsense, for which there is absolutely no basis in our writings. And I do not at all hold the opinion that he showed us the contradictions in our teaching: these contradictions are only the fruit of his imagination. “O highest heaven,” the Jew of Celsus continues, “where has it been seen that God dwells among people and, having appeared among them, does not gain faith for Himself?” To this we can say that the books of Moses also tell that God made His presence known among the Jews with the most obvious clarity, and not only through the signs and wonders performed in Egypt during the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:1-31), while walking in a pillar of fire and in a bright cloud (Exod. 13:21, 22), but also at the time when the Ten Commandments were proclaimed to all the people (Ex. 32), and, despite all these circumstances, He did not gain faith from those who were eyewitnesses of these events. If they had believed in Him whom they saw and heard, then they would not have poured out the calf, they would not have exchanged “their glory for the image of an ox eating grass” (Ps. 105:20), they would not have said to each other, pointing to the calf: “Behold your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” ( Exodus 32:4 ) And look if the Jews are not exactly the same now! Despite such great miracles and such obvious appearances of God, they had remained unfaithful throughout their entire wanderings in the desert, as we learn from their law. And after the miraculous coming of Jesus into the world, they also do not bow before His powerful speeches, before His amazing deeds that He performed in front of all the people. LXXV. And I think that these facts are enough for anyone who wants to prove that the unbelief of the Jews regarding Jesus is fully consistent with what was written about this people in ancient times. The Jew of Celsus, of course, will object: “When did God appear among people and not find faith among them, especially when he came to those people who were expecting His coming? And why do they not recognize Him even after they have been waiting for Him for so long? But I, for my part, could give the following answer to all these objections: what do you, my dears, want to hear from us in response to your questions? Which miracles do you think are more important: those that were performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, or those that we claim Jesus performed among you? If the former in your eyes have greater power than the latter, then is it not obvious that people who were not affected by the greater miracles, out of habit, had to reject the less important miracles - precisely those miracles of Jesus that we attribute to Him? Even suppose that you consider the miracles of Jesus to be as great as those that, according to Scripture, were performed by Moses, but even then, what is strange in the fact that the same people here, just like there - in ancient times - turned out to be unfaithful? After all, at the very beginning, through Moses, a law was given to you, in which your crimes against the faith and against the commandments were outlined; but from Jesus the second law also appeared to us, the second covenant, as is recognized (in Christianity). Thus, by not believing in Jesus, you thereby testify that you are the sons of those who in the desert found themselves not believing in Divine phenomena, and the words of our Savior are fully applicable to your unbelief, who said: “By this you bear witness to the works of your fathers and agree with them” (Luke 11:48). And the prophecy is also fulfilled on you: “Your life will hang before you, and you will not be sure of your life” (Deut. 28:66). Indeed, you did not believe the life that descended into the human race. LXXVI. Celsus, in the person of his Jew, was not able to raise anything as an objection that he himself could not be accused of on the basis of the law and the prophets. For example, he brings the following accusation against Jesus: “Jesus frivolously expresses threats and reproaches in the following expressions: woe to you and: I predict to you. With these words, He clearly testifies only to the fact that He is incapable of convincing, while this inability cannot be expected from any reasonable person, much less from God.” But see if this objection does not apply to the Jew himself. After all, both in the law and in the prophets we find threats and reproaches from God, which can easily be placed on the same level as the Gospel: “woe to you.” These are the expressions in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “Woe to you who add house to house, adding field to field” (Is. 5:8), and: “Woe to those who seek strong drink early in the morning” (Is. 5:11), and: “Woe to those who drag iniquity upon themselves with ropes of vanity” (Is. 5:18), and: “Woe to those who call evil good” (Is. 5:20), and: “Woe to those who are bold to drink wine” (Isa. 5:22). You can find many other (threats). In fact, aren’t all these threats similar to those threats that He speaks of: “Alas, a sinful people, a people burdened with iniquities, a race of evildoers: sons of destruction!” (Isa. 1:4), etc.? To this can be added many more similar threats, which are no less harsh in comparison with those that, as he claims, Jesus uttered. But isn’t this an even greater threat, which lies in the words: “Your land is devastated; your cities are burned with fire; your fields are eaten up by strangers in your sight; everything was desolate, as after the devastation of strangers” (Isa. 1:7)? Isn’t this a reproach towards the people in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, where the Lord addresses the prophet with these words: “You will live among the scorpions” (Ezekiel 2:6)? And are you, Celsus, deliberately forcing your Jew to raise the objection against Jesus that “He seems to frivolously express threats and censures in his words: “Woe to you” and: “I prophesy to you?”” Do you not see that the accusations that the Jew brings against Jesus can be brought against him and against God? After all, from the point of view of the Jew, and God, Who speaks through the prophet, obviously concerns this objection that He was not able to convince. And to this Jew of Celsus, who is convinced that he rightly raises all these objections against Jesus, I could also make the following remark: are there not enough censures and threats in the books: Leviticus and Deuteronomy? And if the Jew wants to defend them, and at the same time justify the Scripture, then we will equally well, or even better, defend those censures and threats that are attributed to Jesus. Yes, as for the Mosaic Law itself, we can defend it better, since Jesus taught us to understand the Books of the Law better than a Jew could. However, a Jew, if only he pays attention to the meaning of prophetic verbs, can show that God does not at all lightly bring threats and express prohibitions in his expressions: “woe to you” and “I predict to you -” and that God says all this only to turn people to what, in the opinion of Celsus, “in fact, no prudent person would do.” And Christians who recognize that, in fact, one and the same God, who speaks both in the person of the prophets and in the person of the Lord (Jesus), can prove the reasonableness of what Celsus passes off as “threats and prohibitions.” And since Celsus boasts that he is a philosopher and that he knows all our teaching (Cf. 1, XII, p. 36), we will make some short remarks to him here. Kind! When Homer's Hermes says to Odysseus: Poor thing, why are you walking alone in the desert 255, then you will be quite pleased if in this case they give you an excuse that Homer's Hermes speaks in a similar way to Odysseus only to make a reprimand to him. Meanwhile, speaking flattering and tender speeches is characteristic only of sirens 256 Who are surrounded by piles of bones 257 and who say: Come here dear Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans 258! But if our prophets and Jesus Himself, in order to attract listeners, use the word “grief” or other expressions that you consider “swearing”, then in such speeches (Hermes) there is no benefit for the listeners, then there is no point in citing such a method of exhortation as a healing medicine. Or perhaps you think that God, or anyone who has a share in the Divine nature, takes into account only his own nature and looks only at his own dignity and honor when he talks with people, and that he is not at all aware of what he should say to people to whom in his words he wants to make a certain demand and give a certain guidance, and, in particular, how he should speak with each (person) in accordance with his inherent moral development? In general, isn’t it funny to challenge Jesus with something that He couldn’t convince? After all, such an objection is ridiculous to hear not only from the Jew, who can find many similar examples in his prophets, but also from the pagans. The pagans even know that any of the people who enjoy the glory of great wisdom were not able to convince their secret enemies or their judges and accusers to abandon injustice and begin the path of wisdom leading to virtue. LXXVII. After this, the Jew, obviously following the favorite opinions of the Jews, turns to Jesus with the following speech: “We have the firm hope that we will be resurrected in the body and receive eternal life, and that in this regard our example and founder will be the One who will be sent to us and who through this will show that for God it is not impossible to be resurrected along with the body.” We, in fact, do not know whether the Jew wants to say by this that the expected Christ in Himself will set an example of the Resurrection; but we, for our part, want to admit that the thought and speech of the Jew comes down to this very position. And since he wants to extract his objection raised against us from our Scriptures, then in view of this, let the following question serve as an answer to him: dear! Yes, you only read in them (the Scriptures) what gives you a reason to accuse us, and that Jesus rose again and is the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18, Rev. 1:5) - didn’t you find this in them? Isn't it because they don't talk about it because you don't want to read about it? Since the Jew in Celsus still continues to speak and even admits the resurrection of the body, then I, for my part, do not consider it opportune to now enter into further conversation with him on this issue in view of the fact that he believes and speaks of the resurrection of the body as a real fact - and in this case it makes no difference to me whether he sincerely shares such a teaching and whether he will be able to prove its truth or, on the contrary, he does not share the truth of this teaching and only apparently agrees with him. This is the answer we give to the Jew of Celsus. If he further says: “Where is He, so that we can see and believe (in Him)?” - then to this question we will answer him this way: where is now the one who spoke through the prophets and performed miracles, so that we could see and believe that He (Deut. 32:9) is God’s portion? Or can only you indicate in this case the reasons why God does not always appear to the Jewish people, and we, on the contrary, are forbidden to come up with the same defense regarding Christ, Who once and for all after His Resurrection instilled in the disciples the conviction of the truth of His Resurrection - instilled this conviction so strongly that the disciples with their suffering clearly showed that they, looking at eternal life and the Resurrection, which was proven to them both in word and in deed, put everything at nothing real life disasters? LXXVIII. “Or perhaps He then came down to earth,” the Jew further asks, “so that we could demonstrate our unbelief?” We will answer this. It was not at all because He came to become the cause of unbelief for the Jews; It was only because He foresaw this unbelief that He predicted it; Moreover, He used this unbelief of the Jews as a reason to call on the pagans; the fall of the first became the reason for the salvation of the pagans (Rom. 11:11). It is about them that Christ speaks through the mouth of the prophets: “a people whom I did not know serves me. Because they hear about me, they obey me” (Ps. 17:44–45). And in another place: “Those who did not look for Me found Me: “Here I am!” Here I am!” I spoke to a people who were not called by My name” (Isaiah 65:1). In addition, it is clear that the punishment suffered by the Jews in this life came to them due to the fact that they caused suffering to Jesus. Let the Jews rant, let them accuse us, but it was on them that the providence of God and His love for mankind was revealed in an amazing way, they were punished and even lost Jerusalem, this sanctuary of theirs, as they say, this holiest place of serving God. And if the Jews nevertheless speak in defense of Providence, we, for our part, will defend it even more and better. We will say that the Providence of God is extremely amazing: it took advantage of the crime of this people in order to call the pagans into the kingdom of God through Jesus, despite the fact that the latter were strangers to the covenants (cf. Eph. 2:12) and stood aloof from the promise. Even the prophets predicted this; They precisely said that, as a result of the sins of the Jewish people, God would not choose just one people, but would accept the elect from everywhere, and that, having chosen “the foolish things of the world” (1 Cor. 1:27), he would teach the foolish people to abide in Divine verbs, taking away the Kingdom of God from some and transferring it to others. It will be enough if we cite at least one of the many prophecies (proclaiming this fact), extracted from a song in Deuteronomy, namely the prophecy where, on behalf of the Lord, the following is said about the calling of the pagans: “They have provoked Me to anger without a god; they have provoked Me with their vanity; LXXIX. Then the Jew concludes all these (reasonings) with the following words spoken by him to Jesus: “So He was a man, and just such a man as truth reveals and reason proves.” I don’t know if a man who dared to spread his religion (θεοσέβειαν) and his teaching throughout the Universe could have fulfilled his desire without Divine help (ἀθεεὶ) and emerged victorious over everyone who opposed the spread of His teaching - over kings, leaders, the Roman Senate, over all the leaders of the people, over the people themselves. And how could a (simple) human being, not possessing in himself any higher power (μηδὲν ἔχουσα κρεῖττον), convert such a multitude, and not only the wise men - which would not be so surprising - but even people who were extremely unreasonable and given over to passions - such people who, in view of their unreason was not so easily turned away from (unreason) and turned to more or less perfect sanity. Only because Christ was God's power (δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ) and the Wisdom of the Father, He could do all this and is doing it even today, despite the fact that Jews and pagans, who do not believe His teaching, are trying to resist. So, following the precepts of Jesus Christ, we, for our part, will not cease to believe in God and work in the field of converting those who do not know true reverence for God, who, on the contrary, in their real blindness try to revile us and say that we ourselves are possessed by blindness - who, no matter whether they are Jews or pagans, accuse us of allegedly deceiving people, while they themselves, in fact, are deceiving these latter because their gullibility. Our deception is good, as long as we achieve that the intemperate become chaste, or at least succeed in chastity, so that the wicked turn to righteousness or, at least, walk along the path to righteousness, so that the foolish become well-minded or, at least, walk along the path to righteousness, so that the cowardly, weak, lacking courage become firm and strong in spirit, in a word - possessors such virtues, which they especially demonstrate during persecution and suffering for faith in God, the Creator of the Universe! So, the coming of Jesus Christ was predicted not by one prophet, but by all (the prophets). And Celsus therefore turned out to be extremely ignorant, since he forced his Jew to say that only “one prophet” supposedly predicted about Christ. All these objections raised by Celsus the Jew are, in his opinion, based on his law. With these objections - to which he adds some others that do not, however, deserve mention - his speech ends. In view of this, I intend to finish the second book of my response to his essay. If God helps and sends the grace (δυνάμεως) of Christ into our soul, then in the third book we will try to refute further objections of Celsus. that is, those who converted from paganism. ἐπώνυμοι τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἐκδοχὴν πτωχείας τοῦ νόμου γεγενημένοι - here Origen obviously means to point out the one-sided adherence of the Jews to the very letter of the Mosaic Law - a commitment that excludes the spiritual meaning of the Mosaic Law as a pre-image of the New Testament messianic kingdom. In this case, Origen characterizes that initial (first century) stage of Ebionism, when the Jewish Christians, with their adherence to the ritual side of the Mosaic Law, believed in Christ as the Son of God, the promised Messiah, and did not yet show a tendency to consider Christ a simple man, the son of Mary and Joseph, as must be said about the Ebionites of the second and early third centuries. i.e. Apostles of circumcision: Peter, James. τὸν πρεσβεύοντα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ - cf. 2 Cor. 5:20. Origen obviously does not mean Aristotle’s personal hostility to Plato (which is not confirmed by the facts of history; see Windelband’s “History of Ancient Philosophy” in Russian translation by Prof. Vvedensky, 1893, p. 195), but the difference and opposition of the principles themselves that underlie the worldview of these two famous Greek philosophers, of whom the first was a follower of idealism, and the second of realism. Chrysippus and Cleanthes are students and followers of the (Stoic) philosophy of Zeno. We know nothing about their mutual relations, because their works have been preserved either only by titles, or in minor fragments. A subtle hint at Celsus's own beliefs. Emperor Hadrian forbade even Jews from performing circumcision on themselves, and only Emperor Antoninus Pius again restored the Jewish law on circumcision, making it a privilege exclusively for the Jewish people. As a result of this, the Samaritans no longer had the right to be circumcised under pain of punishment. Spenger. Josephus Flavius, famous Jewish historian. that is, the foreknowledge of Jesus. Originally from Thrall, author (from the time of Hadrian) of several works, of which are known: 1) Ὀλυμπιάδες, 2) Περὶ θαυμασίων, 3) Περὶ Μακρόβιων. The idea that, in the absence of outside witnesses, the students could perfectly hide and remain silent about their embarrassment. Celsus, obviously, considered the views of the Docetes (heretics) who recognized the illusory nature of the suffering of Jesus to be the general teaching of all Christians. Plato Republic. X 13 sq. This story is cited by many ancient Christian writers as proof of the truth of the resurrection of the dead. Heraclides of Pontus, listener of Plato and Speusippus, (in the 4th century BC), author of numerous works in which, despite all their learning, there are many incredible stories and absurd tales. The following story about a woman who came to life again after her death belongs to these. ἡ ψυχὴ οἰκονομησαμένη δέ τινα ἔξω αὐτοῦ, i.e. Jesus’ accomplishment of the work of saving people is meant. This refers to an episode from the war (480 BC) between Leonidas, the king of Sparta, and Xerxes, the king of Persia, when Leonidas with 300 selected Spartan warriors decided to defend the Thermopylae pass from the attack of the huge hordes of King Xerxes. After defending the Thermopylae Pass for two days, Leonidas and his Spartans died a heroic death. Wed. in Plutarch's Apohtheg. lacon. p. 225 D. that is, the position about the impossibility of denying in the soul of Peter the presence of a certain degree of love and respect for his Teacher. This means Ambrose, Origen's patron of the arts. Laius, king of Thebes, was childless for a long time and finally received a prediction from Apollo that he would have a son from his childless wife Jocasta, who would be his murderer. The promised little one was Oedipus, who stained his life with the murder of his father. Of course, Euripides (b. 480 BC), the famous Greek tragic poet, who wrote a number of tragedies and, by the way, one called: Фoi'nissai, from which Origen took the quoted passage (V. 18–20). That is, Archilochus of Paria (about 700 BC) is the father of iambic poetry. According to history, he was distinguished by an extremely irritable character and, being unhappy in life, harbored constant hostility towards the people around him. He especially vented his anger on the Lykamba family. The latter promised to marry his youngest daughter, Neobula, to the poet, but betrayed his word, and for this he was evilly ridiculed along with his daughters in the poet’s iambics. Out of shame, Lykambus, together with his daughters, they say, took his own life. This refers to the Gnostics, who, in order to humiliate the Old Testament as the work of an evil, punitive demiurge, tendentiously selected Old Testament expressions, cutting out those parts in them that were not favorable to their own views. Marcion (mid-2nd century) founded a special sect in Rome, known under his name, Valentin (who developed his heretical activities in Rome around 140 and the founder of his own school) and Lucian (first a student of Marcion, and then a representative of his own school) were famous followers of Gnosticism - this heretical system, which is known in the history of Christianity, among other things, for its free, subjective-rationalistic attitude and using the sacred text of the Bible. About the Marcionites, for example, Tertullian wrote: “Nam et quotidie reformant, prout a nobis quotidie revincuntur.” (Adv. Marc. 4:5). See 12, XIII, rus. lane page 121. See 1, LVI; 2, VIII, rus. lane page 112. Of course, Jesus Christ. See above 2, IX, p. 114. This especially needs to be said about the Gnostics. See Homer, Iliad, 5:340; Wed in Origen above: 1, LIXI, p. 101. i.e. Messiah Christ, the hope of all Old Testament humanity. ἐναργείᾳ – actually, the consciousness of the Divine as the basis of service to the Divine. those. from evil as a manifestation of the moral world order. Democritus (born between 470 and 460 BC), together with his student Leucippus, was the founder of atomistic philosophy. Crates of Thebes is a cynical philosopher. Diogenes of Sinope (born in 404 BC) is a representative of cynical philosophy. gumnh' sw'mato_s geno'meno_s _psuxh'. those. Divine mission of the disciples of Jesus. those. conclusion about the Divinity of Jesus' miracles. Zamolxis was first a slave, and then a freedman of Pythagoras, who returned to his homeland, where he preached his philosophical teachings. Rampsinitis is the mythical king of Egypt, the son of Proteus, who descended into the underworld and then returned to earth again (Herodotus 2:122). Orpheus is a mythical hero and singer. He went to Hades to return his deceased wife Eurydice from here, and in Hades, with his singing, he so touched the queen of shadows that he and his wife were allowed to follow back to earth. Protesilaus is the son of Iphicles and Astyochus, king of Phylax in Thessaly. He was killed at Troy and, through the prayers of his loving wife Laodamia, was brought back to earth for three hours. Hercules is a Greek folk hero who performed the famous 12 labors and, by the way, brought Cerberus (the dog who guarded the entrance to Hades) from the underworld. Theseus is the son of the Athenian king Aegeus. Together with Peirifoe, he went down to Hades to kidnap Hades’s wife for him, for which he was punished: he was chained to a rock. Only later was Hercules freed and returned to earth. τὸν Ἰησοῦν Μωϋσέως θειότερον. See above 2, XIV, p. 123. which, according to Tseli, was lacking in the moral nature of Jesus. Plato, dialogue "Phaedo", page 30. εἷς ὢν – this refers to the individuality of the personal existence of Jesus, invariably united in its Divine essence, as the Son of God. those. because the people who were looking for Jesus did not recognize Him. in In this case, the completely correct thought about the glorified state of Christ’s bodily nature after His Resurrection is combined with the completely non-church idea about the perfection of the Divinity of Christ itself, which, of course, has always remained and remains unchanged. i.e. resurrection from the dead ἠξίωσεν τῇ θειοτέρᾳ φύσει. Origen, speaking about the impossibility of some actions even for the Divine nature of Christ, obviously meant the aimlessness and disagreement of such actions with the requirements of the moral nature of Christ. See above 2, LXIII-LXVII, pp. 168–173. John 1:18. This passage in Origen (according to Bonvetch's edition) reads as follows: (καὶ μονογενής γε ὢν θεός) (cf. Origen Comm. in Joh. tom. II, 29). In the Paris manuscript, according to Delarue's edition, there is the expression ὁ μονογενής υἱος. See above XI, XXIII, XXIV, LXIX; pp. 118:133, 134:174. mythical maidens who lured passersby by singing and then killed them. Homer "Odyssey" XII, 184. that is, with such universal human qualities as Celsus endows Him in the person of the Jew he brought out. You might be interested in: