Euripides on the sun and night that serve mortals
Next, forgetting that his aim is to accuse Jews and Christians, he raises against himself an iambic line of Euripides that runs counter to his own view; and, coming to grips with what was said, he charges it with being badly said. Celsus’s words run thus: “And if you quote the line of Euripides, that ‘sun and night serve mortals’ (Euripides, Phoenician Women 546), why do they serve us more than the ants and the flies? For to them too night comes for rest, and day for seeing and working.”
It is clear, then, that not only some of the Jews and Christians have said that the sun and the things in heaven serve us, but also the man whom some call the philosopher of the stage, who had been a hearer of Anaxagoras’s teaching on nature. From one rational being, man, he speaks by synecdoche of all rational beings, and says that the things set in order in the universe serve them; and these things in turn are shown by synecdoche in the words “sun and night.” Or perhaps the tragic poet also called the day “sun”, after the sun that makes the day, teaching that the things which most need day and night are those beneath the moon, and of these none so much as the things on earth.
Day and “night,” then, “serve mortals,” since they come into being for the sake of rational beings. And if ants and flies, which work by day and rest at night, also have a share in what has come into being for human beings, we must not say that day and night come into being for ants and flies as well, nor that they come into being for nothing; but we must hold that these things came into being by providence for the sake of human beings.
Greek
Ἑξῆς δὲ τούτοις ἐπιλαθόμενος ὅτι τὸ προκείμενον αὐτῷ ἐστιν Ἰουδαίων καὶ Χριστιανῶν κατηγορεῖν, ἑαυτῷ ἀνθυποφέρει Εὐριπίδειον ἰαμβεῖον. ἐναντιούμενον αὐτοῦ τῇ γνώμῃ· καὶ ὁμόσε χωρήσας τῷ λελεγμένῳ κατηγορεῖ ὡς κακῶς εἰρημένου. ἔχει δ᾿ οὕτως ἡ τοῦ Κέλσου λέξις· εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ Εὐριπίδειον ἐρεῖς, ὅτι ἥλιος μὲν νύξ τε δουλεύει βροτοῖς. τί μᾶλλον ἡμῖν ἢ τοῖς μύρμηξι καὶ ταῖς μυίαις; καὶ γὰρ ἐκείνοις ἡ μὲν „νὺξ“ γίνεται πρὸς ἀνάπαυσιν ἡ δ᾿ ἡμέρα πρὸς τὸ ὁρᾶν τε καὶ ἐνεργεῖν. σαφὲς δὴ ὅτι οὐ μόνον Ἰουδαίων καὶ Χριστιανῶν τινες εἰρήκασιν ἡμῖν δουλεύειν ἥλιον καὶ τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ κατά τινας σκηνικὸς φιλόσοφος καὶ φυσιολογίας τῆς Ἀναξαγόρου γενόμενος ἀκροατής· ὅστις ἀπὸ ἑνὸς λογικοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου συνεκδοχικῶς πᾶσι τοῖς λογικοῖς (τὰ) τεταγμένα ἐν τῷ παντί φησι δουλεύειν. δηλούμενα πάλιν συνεκδοχικῶς ἐκ τοῦ· ἥλιος μὲν νύξ τε. ἢ τάχα καὶ ὁ τραγικὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ ποιοῦντος τὴν ἡμέραν ἡλίου ὠνομασε τὴν ἡμέραν, διδάσκων ὅτι τὰ μάλιστα χρῄζοντα ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς τὰ ὑπὸ σελήνην ἐστὶ. καὶ οὐχ οὕτως ἄλλα ὡς τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς. ἡμέρα οὖν καὶ „νὺξ δουλεύει βροτοῖς,“ γενόμεναι διὰ τὰ λογικά. εἰ δὲ παραπολαύουσι μύρμηκες καὶ μυῖαι. ἐνεργοῦντες μὲν ἡμέρας νυκτὸς δὲ διαναπαυόμενοι. τῶν δι᾿ ἀνθρώπους γεγενημένων, οὐχὶ καὶ διὰ μύρμηκας καὶ μυίας λεκτέον ἡμέραν γίνεσθαι καὶ νύκτα οὐδὲ δι᾿ οὐδὲν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πρόνοιαν ἀνθρώπων ἕνεκεν ταῦτα χρὴ νομίζειν γεγονέναι.