Bacchus, Pentheus, and the mockers
Celsus’s Jew, thinking he is making fun of Jesus, is portrayed as knowing the Bacchus of Euripides, who says, “The god himself will set me free whenever I wish” (Euripides, Bacchae 498). Jews are hardly given to the study of Greek literature. But let it be that some Jew became so well read. How then does it follow that Jesus, because he did not set himself free when bound, could not have done so? Let him believe, from my own Scriptures, that Peter too, bound in prison, came out when an angel loosed his chains (Acts 12:6–10), and that Paul, with Silas, bound in “the stocks” at Philippi in Macedonia, was set free by divine power, when the “doors” of the prison also “were opened” (Acts 16:24–26). But Celsus probably laughs at these things, or else never read the story at all. Otherwise he would have seen fit to answer it by saying that some sorcerers also loose bonds and open doors by incantations, so as to put what sorcerers do on the same level as what is recorded among us.
“But not even the man who condemned him,” he says, “suffered anything like Pentheus, who went mad or was torn apart.” He did not see that it was not so much Pilate who had condemned him, since Pilate “knew that it was out of envy that” the Jews “had handed him over” (Matthew 27:18), as the Jewish nation. That nation has been condemned by God, torn apart and scattered over all the earth, more terribly than Pentheus was torn apart. And why did he deliberately pass over the story of Pilate’s wife, who had seen a dream and was so moved by it that she sent word to her husband and said, “Have nothing to do with this righteous man, for today I have suffered many things in a dream because of him” (Matthew 27:19)?
And again, keeping silent about what reveals the divinity of Jesus, Celsus reproaches him with what is written in the gospel about him, citing those who mocked him and put a crimson cloak on him, the crown of thorns and the reed in his hand (Matthew 27:28–29). Where then, Celsus, did you learn these things, if not from the gospels? Did you, then, see that these things deserved reproach, while those who recorded them did not perceive that you and those like you would laugh, but that others would take him who readily died for piety as an example of how to scorn those who laugh and jeer at them for their piety? Rather, then, marvel at their love of truth, and at him who willingly suffered these things for the sake of men, and endured them with all forbearance and patience. For it is not recorded that he lamented, or that his condemnation drew from him any ignoble thought or word.
Greek
Παίζων δ᾿, ὡς οἴεται, τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὁ παρὰ τῷ Κέλσῳ Ἰουδαῖος εἰδέναι ἀναγέγραπται τὸν Εὐριπίδου Βάκχον λέγοντα· λύσει μ᾿ ὁ δαίμων αὐτὸς, ὅταν ἐγὼ θέλω. οὐ πάνυ μὲν οὖν Ἰουδαῖοι τὰ Ἑλλήνων φιλολογοῦσιν. ἀλλ᾿ ἔστω τινὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ φιλόλογον οὕτω γεγονέναι· πῶς οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ἐπεὶ μὴ ἔλυσεν αὑτὸν δεδεμένον. οὐδὲ ἐδύνατο λῦσαι; ἦ γὰρ ἐκ τῶν ἐμῶν γραφῶν πιστευέτω ὅτι καὶ Πέτρος δεδεμένος ἐν φυλακῇ ἀγγέλου λύσαντος τοὺς δεσμοὺς ἐξῆλθε, καὶ Παῦλος μετὰ τοῦ Σίλα ἐν Φιλίπποις τῆς Μακεδονίας ὑπὸ „ξύλον“ δεδεμένος ἐλύθη θείᾳ δυνάμει, ὅτε καὶ „θύραι“ τῆς φυλακῆς „ἠνοίχθησαν“. ἀλλ᾿ εἰκὸς ὅτι ταῦτα γελᾷ ὁ Κέλσος ἢ καὶ οὐδαμῶς ἀνέγνω τὴν ἱστορίαν· ἔδοξε γὰρ ἂν λέγειν πρὸς αὐτὴν ὅτι καὶ γόητές τινες ἐπῳδαῖς δεσμοὺς λύουσι καὶ θύρας ἀνοίγουσιν, ἵνα κοινοποιήσῃ τὰ τῶν γοήτων πρὸς τὰ παρ᾿ ἡμῖν ἱστορούμενα. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὁ καταδικάσας. φησὶν. αὐτὸν ἔπαθέ τι. οἷον ὁ Πενθεὺς μανεὶς ἢ σπαραχθείς. οὐκ εἶδε δ᾿ ὅτι οὐχ οὕτω Πιλᾶτος ἦν καταδικάσας αὐτὸν, ὅς γε „ᾔδει ὅτι διὰ φθόνον παρέδωκαν αὐτὸν“ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, ὡς τὸ Ἰουδαίων ἔθνος· ὅπερ καταδεδίκασται ὑπὸ θεοῦ σπαραχθὲν καὶ εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ὑπὲρ τὸν Πενθέως σπαραγμὸν διασπαρέν. διὰ τί δὲ καὶ ἑκὼν παρεπέμψατο τὰ περὶ τῆς γυναικὸς Πιλάτου. ἑωρακυίας ὄναρ καὶ οὕτω κεκινημένης ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, ὡς προσπέμψαι τῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ λέγειν· „μηδέν σοι καὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ τῷ δικαίῳ· σήμερον γὰρ κατ᾿ ὄναρ πολλὰ ἔπαθον δι᾿ αὐτόν“; πάλιν τε αὖ σιωπῶν τὰ ἐμφαίνοντα τὴν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ θειότητα ὁ Κέλσος ὀνειδίζει ἐκ τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. παρατιθέμενος τοὺς ἐμπαίξαντας αὐτῷ καὶ φοινικίδα περιθέντας καὶ τὸν ἐξ ἀκανθῶν στέφανον καὶ τὸν ἐν τῇ χειρὶ κάλαμον. πόθεν οὖν. ὦ Κέλσε. ταῦτα μεμάθηκας ἢ ἀπὸ τῶν εὐαγγελίων; ἆρ᾿ οὖν σὺ μὲν ἑώρας ταῦτα ὀνειδισμοῦ ἄξια, οἱ δ᾿ ἀναγράφοντες αὐτὰ οὐ κατενόουν ὅτι σὺ μὲν καταγελάσῃ καὶ οἱ σοὶ παραπλήσιοι ἄλλοι δὲ παράδειγμα λήψονται τοῦ καταφρονεῖν γελώντων καὶ χλευαζόντων ἐπὶ εὐσεβείᾳ τὸν δι᾿ αὐτὴν ἑτοίμως ἀποθανόντα; μᾶλλον οὖν θαύμαζε αὐτῶν τὸ φιλάληθες καὶ τοῦ ταῦτα ἑκουσίως παθόντος ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων καὶ μετὰ πάσης ἀνεξικακίας καὶ μακροθυμίας αὐτὰ ὑπομείναντος· οὐ γὰρ ἀνεγέγραπτο ὅτι ὠδύρατο ἤ τι ἀγεννὲς ἐκ τοῦ καταδεδικάσθαι ἐνομίσθη (ἢ) ἀνεφθέγξατο.