Knowledge of God is a gift of grace
Celsus, then, thinks that God is known either by synthesis applied to other things, like what geometers call synthesis, or by analysis from other things, or else by analogy, like the analogy the same geometers use; if, that is, anyone can come in this way to the threshold of the Good (Plato, Philebus 64c). But the Word of God, who said, “No one has known the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son reveals him” (Matthew 11:27), declares that God is known by a divine grace, which comes to be in the soul not without God, but with a kind of inspiration.
For it is likely that the knowledge of God is greater than human nature can reach, which is why there are so many errors among men about God; but that, by the goodness and love for mankind of God, and by a wonderful and more divine grace, the knowledge of God reaches those whom God, in his foreknowledge, has laid hold of beforehand as people who would live worthily of him whom they have come to know. They would never debase their piety toward him, not even if they were led away to death by those who do not know what piety is, and who make anything at all out to be piety rather than what piety really is; nor even if they were thought to be the most ridiculous of men.
God, I think, also saw the arrogance, or the contempt for others, of those who pride themselves on having known God and on having learned divine things from philosophy, yet who, like the most ignorant, turn to statues and their temples and the much-talked-of mysteries. And so he “chose the foolish things of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:27), the simplest among Christians, who live more temperately and more purely than many philosophers, “to put to shame the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27), who are not ashamed to converse with lifeless things as with gods or images of gods.
For who that has sense will not laugh at a man who, after all the great and numerous discourses in philosophy about God or gods, gazes at statues, and either sends up his prayer to them, or, through the sight of them, carries it up from what is seen, which is a symbol, to the being known by the mind, to whom he fancies he must ascend? But the Christian, even the unlearned one, is convinced that every place in the world is a part of the whole, since the whole world is God’s temple. Praying “in every place” (1 Timothy 2:8), and closing the eyes of sense and raising those of the soul, he rises above the whole world.
He does not even stop at the vault of heaven, but, coming in thought to the place above the heavens (Plato, Phaedrus 247b-c), led by the divine Spirit, and being as it were outside the world, he sends up to God a prayer that is not about ordinary things. For he has learned from Jesus to seek nothing small, that is, nothing that the senses perceive, but only the great and truly divine things (compare Matthew 6:33), which, given by God, help a man on his way to the blessedness that is with him, through his Son, who is the Word and God.
Greek
Κέλσος μὲν οὖν ἤτοι τῇ συνθέσει τῇ ἐπὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἀνάλογον τῇ παρὰ τοῖς γεωμέτραις καλουμένῃ συνθέσει ἢ τῇ ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ἀναλύσει ἢ καὶ ἀναλο γίᾳ ἀνάλογον τῇ παρὰ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀναλογίᾳ οἴεται γινώσκεσθαι τὸν θεὸν, ἐπὶ τὰ πρόθυρα εἰ ἄρα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ δυναμένου τινὸς οὕτως ἐλθεῖν· ὁ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος εἰπών· „οὐδεὶς ἔγνω τὸν πατέρα εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱὸς καὶ ᾧ ἂν ὁ υἱὸς ἀποκαλύψῃ“ θείᾳ τινὶ χάριτι, οὐκ ἀθεεὶ ἐγγινομένῃ τῇ ψυχῇ ἀλλὰ μετά τινος ἐνθουσιασμοῦ. ἀποφαίνεται γινώσκεσθαι τὸν θεόν. καὶ γὰρ εἰκὸς μείζονα μὲν ἢ κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν εἶναι τὴν γνῶσιν τοῦ θεοῦ (διὸ καὶ τὰ τοσαῦτα παρ᾿ ἀνθρώποις ἐστὶ περὶ θεοῦ σφάλματα) χρηστότητι δὲ καὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ παραδόξῳ καὶ θειοτέρᾳ χάριτι φθάνειν τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ γνῶσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ προκαταληφθέντας ὅτι ἀξίως βιώσουσι τοῦ ἐγνωσμένου, οὐδαμῶς παραχαράττοντες τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν εὐσέβειαν, οὔτε ἂν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀγνοούντων ὅ τι ποτέ ἐστιν εὐσέβεια καὶ πᾶν ὅ τι ποτ᾿ οὖν μᾶλλον ἀναπλαττόντων εἶναι τὴν εὐσέβειαν ἢ ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἡ εὐσέβεια τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ ἀπάγωνται, οὔτε ἂν καταγελαστότατοι εἶναι νομίζωνται. ὁρῶν δ᾿ οἶμαι ὁ θεὸς καὶ τὴν ἀλαζονείαν ἢ τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ὑπεροψίαν τῶν μεγάλα μὲν φρονούντων ἐπὶ τῷ ἐγνωκέναι τὸν θεὸν καὶ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας τὰ θεῖα μεμαθηκέναι παραπλησίως δὲ τοῖς ἀπαιδευτοτάτοις ἐπὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα καὶ τοὺς νεὼς αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ θρυλούμενα μυστήρια ἀγόντων „ἐξελέξατο“ „τὰ μωρὰ τοῦ κόσμου,“ τοὺς ἐν Χριστιανοῖς ἁπλουστάτους καὶ πολλῶν φιλοσόφων μετριώτερον καὶ καθαρώτερον βιοῦντας, „ἵνα καταισχύνῃ τοὺς σοφοὺς,“ οὐκ αἰδουμένους ἐν τῷ τοῖς ἀψύχοις προσομιλεῖν ὡς θεοῖς ἢ θεῶν εἰκόσιν. τίς γὰρ νοῦν ἔχων οὐ καταγελάσεται τοῦ μετὰ τοὺς τηλικούτους καὶ τοσούτους ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ περὶ θεοῦ ἢ θεῶν λόγους ἐνορῶντος τοῖς ἀγάλμασιν καὶ ἤτοι αὐτοῖς ἀναπέμποντος τὴν εὐχὴν ἢ διὰ τῆς τούτων ὄψεως ἐφ᾿ ὃν φαντάζεται δεῖν ἀναβαίνειν ἀπὸ τοῦ βλεπομένου καὶ συμβόλου ὄντος ἀναφέροντός γε ἐπὶ τὸν νοούμενον; Χριστιανὸς δὲ καὶ ὁ ἰδιώτης πάντα μὲν τόπον τοῦ κόσμου πέπεισται εἶναι μέρος τοῦ ὅλου, ναοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ὄντος τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου· „ἐν παντὶ“ δὲ „τόπῳ“ εὐχόμενος, μύσας τοὺς τῆς αἰσθήσεως ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ ἐγείρας τοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς, ὑπεραναβαίνει τὸν ὅλον κόσμον. καὶ οὐδ᾿ ἐπὶ τὴν ἁψῖδα ἵσταται τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἀλλ᾿ εἰς τὸν ὑπερουράνιον γενόμενος τῇ διανοίᾳ τόπον, ὁδηγούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ θείου πνεύματος καὶ ὡσπερεὶ ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου τυγχάνων ἀναπέμπει οὐ περὶ τῶν τυχόντων τὴν εὐχὴν τῷ θεῷ· ἔμαθε γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ μηδὲν μικρὸν, τουτέστιν αἰσθητὸν, ζητεῖν ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ μεγάλα καὶ ἀληθῶς θεῖα, οσα συμβάλλεται διδόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πρὸς τὸ ὁδεῦσαι ἐπὶ τὴν παρ᾿ αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου ὄντος θεοῦ μακαριότητα.