Against Celsus, Book VIII

A prayer as the eighth book begins§1

1I have now come to the end of seven books, and I wish to begin an eighth. God and His “only-begotten” Word (John 1:14) will be present with us, so that the falsehoods of Celsus, which he has vainly entitled The True Doctrine, may be nobly refuted, and so that the teachings of Christianity may be powerfully demonstrated, as far as this lies in what is being dictated. We pray that, with the mind of Paul, we may say, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20), and that we may be ambassadors “for Christ” to men, just as the Word of God calls them to friendship with Himself, since He wishes to bring into kinship with righteousness and truth and the other virtues those who, before they received the teachings of Jesus the Christ, had spent their lives in darkness about God and in ignorance of the Creator.

And again I will say: may God grant us the noble and true Word, the Lord strong and mighty “in battle” (Psalm 24:8) against wickedness. Now we must go on to the next passage of Celsus and to what is to be said against it.

Celsus on serving more than one master§2

2In what came before, he raised the question against us why we do not worship demons; and we answered what he said about demons according to what seemed to us the intent of the divine word. Then, next after that, he brings us in as saying, in answer to his question, since he wants us to worship the demons too, that the same man cannot “serve” several “masters” (Matthew 6:24). This, he thinks, is the voice of sedition, the voice of those who, as he himself called them, “wall themselves off and break away from the rest of mankind.” He supposes that those who say this are, as far as in them lies, projecting their own passion onto God.

That is why he thinks it holds good among men that one who serves someone could not reasonably “serve” another man too, since one of the two would be harmed by the divided service; and that one who has already sworn alliance with someone should not swear alliance with another as well, since that would harm the first; and that it is reasonable not to serve at the same time various heroes and demons of that kind. But in the case of God, whom neither harm nor grief can reach, he thinks it unreasonable to guard against worshipping several gods, as one does in matters concerning men and heroes and demons of this kind. He also says that the one who worships several gods, by worshipping some one of the beings that belong to the great God, in this too does what is dear to Him; and he adds that no one may be honoured to whom this has not been given by Him. “Therefore,” he says, “one who honours and reverences all who are His does not grieve God, to whom they all belong.”

The gods whom Scripture knows§3

3Before we go on to what follows, let us see whether we are not right to accept the saying, “No one can serve two masters,” to which is added, “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other,” and next to it, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Our defence calls us to a deeper and secret teaching about gods and lords.

For the divine Scripture knows that the Lord is great above “all the gods” (Psalm 135:5). By “gods” here we do not understand those worshipped among the nations, since we have learned that “all the gods of the nations are demons” (Psalm 96:5). We understand “gods” of whom the prophetic word knows a certain assembly, with the God over all judging between them and assigning to each the work proper to him. For “God stood in the assembly of gods; in their midst He will judge between gods” (Psalm 82:1). For He is also “the God of gods, the Lord,” who through the Son “called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting” (Psalm 50:1). And we are commanded to give thanks “to the God of gods” (Psalm 136:2), having also learned that “God is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). These things are said not only through the passages set out here but through countless others.

For us one God and one Lord§4

4Such, too, are the things that the divine words teach us to examine and to hold about the Lord and lords. In one place they say: “Give thanks to the God of gods, for His mercy is for ever; give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His mercy is for ever” (Psalm 136:2–3); in another, that God is “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). The word knows of gods, some of whom are so called, while others actually are gods, whether they are so called or not. Paul teaches the same about lords too, both those who are and those who are not, when he says: “For although there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords” (1 Corinthians 8:5).

Then, since “the God of gods” calls “from the east” and “the west” (Psalm 50:1; Matthew 8:11) into His own portion, through Jesus, those whom He wills, and since the Christ of God, being Lord, shows that He surpasses all who hold lordship by the very fact that He has set foot within the borders of all and calls to Himself from every border, for this reason Paul, knowing these things, says after the words I have quoted: “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him” (1 Corinthians 8:6). And seeing a wonderful and mysterious teaching in the passage, he adds to these words: “But not all have this knowledge” (1 Corinthians 8:7).

When he says, “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things” (1 Corinthians 8:6), he says “for us” of himself and of all who have ascended to the God over all, the God “of gods,” and to the Lord over all, the Lord “of lords.” And the one who has ascended to the God over all is he who worships Him without division, without separation, without partition, through the Son, God’s Word and Wisdom seen in Jesus, who alone brings to Him those who try in every way, by excellent words and deeds and thoughts, to bring themselves into kinship with God, the Maker of the universe.

Over against these truths, and others like them, I think that the ruler “of this age” (1 Corinthians 2:6), who disguises himself “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), produced the saying: “And there follows him a host of gods and demons, marshalled in eleven companies” (Plato, Phaedrus 246e). In this passage he says of himself and of those who have practised philosophy: “We with Zeus, and others with other demons” (Plato, Phaedrus 250b).

Rising above every other master§5

5Since, then, there are many gods, whether so called or real, and likewise many lords, we do all we can to rise above not only the things worshipped as gods among the nations on earth, but also those whom the Scriptures call gods. About these they know nothing who are “strangers to the covenants” (Ephesians 2:12) of God given through Moses and through our Saviour Jesus, and who are aliens to His promises made known through these.

The one who does no work that is dear to demons rises above servitude to all demons. And the one who looks “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are not seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18), whether in the way those beings do or however the matter may stand, rises above the portion of those whom Paul says are gods. And when a man sees how “the eager longing of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19), “not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20); when he speaks of the creation with reverence and sees how all of it “will be set free from its bondage to corruption” and will come “into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21), he is not drawn away into serving God and some other being along with Him, nor into “serving two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

So it is not the voice of sedition in those who have understood such things and do not wish to “serve” several “masters,” and who for this reason are content with the Lord Jesus Christ. He trains under Himself those who serve Him, so that, when they have been trained and have become a “kingdom” worthy of God, He may hand them over to God the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24). Yet they do cut themselves off and break away from those who are aliens to “the commonwealth” of God and strangers to His “covenants” (Ephesians 2:12), so that they may live as citizens of “the commonwealth in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), drawing near to the living God “and to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:22–23).

Ambassadors who will not bow§6

6Nor is it as though God were harmed, as a man seems to be harmed by one who also serves another besides him, that we refuse to serve any other than God, through His Word and His Truth. It is so that we may not harm ourselves by separating ourselves from the portion of the God over all, since we live in kinship with His blessedness by the excellent “spirit of adoption.” That spirit is in the sons of the Father in heaven, who cry aloud in secret “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15), uttering not mere words but realities.

The ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians, though the king’s bodyguards pressed them hard, did not bow down before the king of the Persians, because they feared their one lord, the law of Lycurgus (Herodotus, Histories 7.136). But those who go on the far greater and more divine embassy “for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20) would not bow down before the ruler of the Persians, or of the Greeks, or of the Egyptians, or of any nation whatever, even if the bodyguards of those rulers, demons and angels of the devil, should wish to force them to do so, and should try to persuade them to say a long farewell to Him who is greater than every law on earth. For the Lord of those who are ambassadors “for Christ” is Christ, for whom they are ambassadors, who was the Word “in the beginning,” who was “with God,” and who was “God” (John 1:1).

What harm can heroes suffer?§7

7Next, Celsus seemed to be stirring up an argument about heroes and certain demons that went deeper than he could see. For after his argument about service to men, in which the first master, whom someone wishes to serve, is harmed if he also wishes to serve a second, he says that “the same would hold also for heroes and for demons of this kind.” We must ask him what he means by heroes, and of what sort he says these demons are, such that the one who serves this hero must not serve another, and the one who serves this demon must not serve another as well, as though the first demons, whom someone worshipped before the second, were harmed in the same way as men are harmed. Let him also show what harm he thinks heroes or such demons suffer. For either he will fall into a sea of nonsense and be forced to take back his argument and reject what he has said, or, if he does not wish to talk nonsense, he will be forced to admit that he knows neither heroes nor the nature of demons.

And to his argument about men, that the first are harmed if someone serves a second, we must reply: what kind of harm does he say comes to the first man, if the one who serves him wishes to serve another as well?

No harm can touch the wise§8

8For if he were to speak as a layman and, in an unphilosophical way, take harm to mean harm to possessions, the things called external to us, he would be refuted as one who had not even paid attention to the fine saying of Socrates: “Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me; for it is not permitted that the better should be harmed by the worse” (Plato, Apology 30c-d). And if by harm he means a movement or a state that accords with vice, it is clear that when a man serves two wise men who live in different places, no harm at all comes to the wise. But if not even this is reasonable, then it is in vain that he has taken up the example as a charge against the saying “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). And all the more will the argument prevail for serving the God of the universe alone, through His Son, who brings us to God.

Moreover, we will worship God not as though He were in need, nor as though He were grieved if we do not worship Him, but because we ourselves are helped by the worship of God, and because we become free from grief and from passion by serving the God over all through His only-begotten Word and Wisdom.

Who grants the right to be honoured§9

9See how ill-considered are the words “For if you also worship anything else in the universe”, which imply that the worship of God carries us on, without any harm to ourselves, to any one of the things that belong to God, without distinction. But as if he had noticed that he had not spoken soundly in saying “For if you also worship anything else in the universe”, he takes the point up again and corrects his statement with these words: “Nor may anyone be honoured to whom this has not been granted by Him.”

So let us ask Celsus about those who are honoured as gods, or demons, or even heroes: On what grounds, my good man, can you prove that the right to be honoured was granted to them by God, and not by the ignorance and want of learning of human beings who wander and fall away from the One to whom honour properly belongs? Hadrian’s favourite, at any rate, is honoured, as you said a little while ago, Celsus; and surely you will not say that it was the God of the universe who granted Antinous the right to be honoured as a god. We will say the same about the others too, and demand proof that the right to be honoured was granted to them by the God who is over all.

But if he turns a similar objection back on us concerning Jesus, we will show that it was from God that the right to be honoured was granted to Him: “that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father” (John 5:23). For the prophecies made before His birth were the credentials of His honour. And the wonders He worked, not by sorcery, as Celsus supposes, but by a divine power foretold by the prophets, had their testimony from God, so that whoever “honours the Son” (John 5:23), who is the Word, does nothing contrary to reason and may be benefited by honouring Him; and that, honouring Him who is the Truth (John 14:6), he may become better through honouring truth, and in the same way through honouring wisdom and righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), and all the things that the divine Scriptures say the Son of God is.

Honour shown by a sound life§10

10See whether we are not taught that honour toward the Son of God, and in the same way honour toward God the Father, is rendered through a sound life, both from the words “You who boast in the law dishonour God by breaking the law” (Romans 2:23), and from these: “How much worse a punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has counted as common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:29). For if the one who breaks the law dishonours God “by breaking the law” (Romans 2:23), and the one who tramples on the Word tramples underfoot “the Son of God” (Hebrews 10:29), it is plain that the one who keeps the law honours God, and the one who is adorned with the Word of God and with His works reveres God.

If Celsus had known who belong to God, namely the wise alone, and who are strangers to Him, namely all the wicked who show no inclination at all to take up virtue, he would have seen in what sense one ought to say his words: “If then one honours and reveres all who are His, how does he grieve God, to whom they all belong?”

No faction in the kingdom of God§11

11Next after this he says: “And yet the one who, speaking about God, asserts that one Lord is meant is impious, because he divides the kingdom of God and creates faction, as though there were a party, and some other rival opposed to Him.”

This would have had some force for him if he had proved by geometrical demonstrations that those whom the nations worship as gods really are gods, and had shown that those who are believed to dwell about statues and temples and altars are not some wicked demons. But as for the kingdom of God, which is constantly spoken of and written about among us, we pray both to understand it and to become such that we may be ruled by God alone, and that the kingdom of God may become ours also. He, on the other hand, who teaches us to revere many gods, ought, if he looks at what follows from his own position, to speak of a kingdom of gods rather than of God.

So there are no factions with God, nor is there any god who is His rival, even if some, like Giants or Titans, wish through their own wickedness to fight against God, together with Celsus and those who have taken up war against Him who in countless ways established what concerns Jesus, and against Jesus Himself, who for the salvation of our race gave Himself, being the Word, to the whole world at once, as each is able to receive Him.

One God, the Father and the Son§12

12Next, he might seem to say something plausible against us in these words: “If these people worshipped no other but one God, they would perhaps have a strong argument against the others. But as it is, they worship beyond measure this man who appeared only lately, and yet they think they commit no offence against God if His servant also is worshipped.”

To this too we must reply that, if Celsus had understood the words “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and those spoken in prayer by the Son of God, “as I and You are one” (John 17:22), he would not have supposed that we worship any other besides the God who is over all. For “the Father”, He says, “is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:38). But if anyone is troubled by these words, fearing that we may somehow be going over to those who deny that the Father and the Son are two distinct realities, let him attend to the words “the heart and soul of all who believed were one” (Acts 4:32), so that he may understand “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). So, as we have explained, we worship one God, the Father and the Son.

And our strong argument against the others still holds; nor do we worship beyond measure one who appeared only lately, as though He had not existed before. For we believe Him who said, “Before Abraham came to be, I am” (John 8:58), and who says, “I am the Truth” (John 14:6). And none of us is so servile in mind as to think that the being of truth did not exist before the time when Christ appeared. We worship, then, the Father of the Truth and the Son who is the Truth, two realities in their distinct existence, but one in unity of mind, in harmony, and in sameness of will. So the one who has seen the Son, who is “the radiance of the glory” and the imprint “of the being” of God (Hebrews 1:3), has seen God in Him (John 14:9), since He is the image of God (Colossians 1:15).

Which servants of God we worship§13

13Then he thinks that, because we worship His Son together with God, it follows for us that on our own view not only God but also His servants are to be worshipped. Now if he had meant those who are truly servants of God after the Only-begotten of God, Gabriel and Michael and the rest of the angels, and had said that these ought to be worshipped, then perhaps, after clearing up what he means by worship and what acts the worshipper performs, we would have said on the subject, as men discussing matters so great, whatever we were able to understand about them. But as it is, since he takes as God’s servants the demons whom the nations worship, he does not bind us by any logic to worship such beings; for our teaching shows them to be servants of the evil one, and of the ruler of this age (John 12:31; 1 Corinthians 2:6), who draws away from God whomever he can.

So it is because they are not God’s servants that we refuse to revere and worship all those whom the rest of mankind reveres; for had we been taught that they were servants of the God who is over all, we would not call them demons. Therefore we revere the one God and His one Son, His Word and Image, with supplications and petitions as far as we are able, bringing our prayers to the God of the universe through His Only-begotten. To Him we first offer them, and we ask Him, who is “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2), to bring our prayers and sacrifices and intercessions as High Priest (Hebrews 2:17) to the God who is over all.

Our faith, then, is directed to God through His Son, who confirms it in us; and Celsus can show no faction of ours concerning the Son of God. And we do revere the Father, as we admire His Son, the Word and Wisdom and Truth and Righteousness, and all that we have learned the Son of God to be; and so we revere also Him who was begotten of such a Father. So much for this.

The founder of peace, not faction§14

14Celsus says again: “If you were to teach them that this man is not His child, but that He is the Father of all, who alone ought truly to be revered, they would no longer be willing, unless they were to revere this man too, who is the founder of their faction. And they called him Son of God not because they revere God greatly, but because they exalt this man greatly.”

We, however, have learned who the Son of God is: that He is “the radiance of the glory and the imprint of His being” (Hebrews 1:3), and “a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty” (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25), and again “the radiance of eternal light, and a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of His goodness” (Wisdom of Solomon 7:26). So we know that He is the Son who comes from God, and that God is His Father. And there is nothing unseemly in this teaching, nor anything unfitting for God, who gives existence to such an only-begotten Son. No one could persuade us that such a one is not the Son of the unbegotten God and Father. If Celsus has heard some people who do not confess that the Son of God is the Son of the One who made this universe, that is a matter for him and for those who agree with such teaching.

Jesus, then, is the founder not of faction but of all peace. He said to the disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27). Then, since He knew that men of the world and not of God would make war on us, He added to those words, “Not as the world gives peace do I give you peace” (John 14:27). And even if we are afflicted in the world, we take courage because of Him who said, “In the world you have affliction; but take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

He is the One we say is the Son of God; of God, whom, if we must follow Celsus’s wording, we revere greatly; and we know that His Son has been greatly exalted by the Father. Grant that some, as may happen in a multitude of believers who admit differences of opinion, rashly suppose that the Saviour is the supreme God over all. We do not; for we obey Him when He says, “The Father who sent me is greater than I” (John 14:28). That is why we would not subject Him whom we now call Father to the Son of God, as Celsus falsely accuses us of doing.

The Son is not stronger than the Father§15

15After this Celsus says: “To show that I do not judge these things wide of the mark, I will use their own words. For somewhere in the Heavenly Dialogue they say, in roughly these words: ‘If the Son is stronger than God, and the Son of Man is his lord (and who else will be lord over the God who rules?), how is it that many are around the well and no one goes into the well? Why, when you are travelling so long a road, do you lack courage? It escapes your notice; for I have courage and a sword.’ So their purpose is not to worship the God above the heavens. It is to worship the one they have supposed to be the father of this one around whom they have gathered, so that under the cover of a great God they may pay worship to this one alone whom they put forward, the Son of Man, whom they declare to be stronger than and lord over ‘the God who rules.’ Hence their command not to ‘serve two masters’ (Matthew 6:24), so that the faction around this one man alone may be kept intact.”

Here again he has taken these things from some sect, I do not know which, and a most obscure one, and on their account he accuses all Christians. I call it most obscure because not even we, who have often trained ourselves in debate against people from the sects, can make out the opinion from which Celsus has taken these things, if indeed he took them and did not make them up himself, or add some inference of his own.

For we, who say that the world of the senses too belongs to the One who created all things, say plainly that the Son is not stronger than the Father but less than he. And we say this in obedience to him, since he said: “The Father who sent me is greater than I” (John 14:28). None of us is so out of his wits as to say: “The Son of Man is lord of God.”

We do say that the Saviour rules, above all when we think of him as God the Word, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Truth: he rules all things that have been made subject to him, in so far as he is these, but not also the Father and God who rules him. Then, since the Word does not rule over the unwilling, and there are some still wicked, not only men but also angels and all the demons, we say that he does not yet rule these, since they do not yield to him willingly. But in another sense of “rule” he rules even them, as we say that man rules the irrational animals without having brought their ruling faculty under him: so, by taming them, he rules certain lions and broken-in beasts of burden. Yet he does all things so that he may persuade even those who do not now obey him, and so rule them as well.

So, as far as we are concerned, the saying that Celsus reports as though we proclaimed it is false: “Who else will be lord over the God who rules?”

Sayings from another sect§16

16Then, I think, again throwing everything into confusion, he brings from another sect the saying “How is it that many are around the well and no one goes into the well?”, and “Why, when you are travelling so long a road, do you lack courage? It escapes your notice,” and “For I have courage and a sword.” We who belong to the Church that bears the name of Christ alone say that none of these things is true.

Having said these things first, he seems to be consistent with himself in saying things that have nothing to do with us. For our purpose is not to worship some God of our own supposing, but the Maker of this universe and of anything else whatever that is neither perceived by the senses nor pointed out. As for those who walk “another way” and “other paths” (Homer, Odyssey 9.261), who deny this Maker and have given themselves to a novel fiction, a God in name only, as though he were greater than the Creator, that is their own affair; and so it is for anyone, if there is such a person, who says that the Son is stronger than and lord over “the God who rules.”

We have already given the account that seems right to us on the saying that one must not “serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). There we also showed that no faction around Jesus the Lord can be shown to exist among those who confess that they have risen above every lord and serve as Lord only the Son of God, the Word of God.

Our altars and statues are within§17

17After this Celsus says that we shun setting up altars and statues and temples, since he supposes that this is the token by which we keep faith with a hidden and secret fellowship. He does not see that our altars are the ruling mind of each righteous person, from which there truly and spiritually rises fragrant “incense”: “prayers” from a pure conscience. That is why John says in the Revelation: “The incense is the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8); and the Psalmist: “Let my prayer be as incense before you” (Psalm 141:2).

Statues, and offerings fit for God, are with us not made by common artisans. They are given clear shape and form in us by the Word of God: they are the virtues, which are likenesses of “the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). In him are the patterns of righteousness and self-control and courage and wisdom and piety and the other virtues. In all, then, who in keeping with the divine Word have fashioned in themselves self-control and righteousness and courage and wisdom and piety, and the works of the other virtues, there are statues. With these, we are convinced, it is fitting to honour the original of all statues: “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), the only-begotten God (John 1:18).

Moreover, those who put off “the old self with its deeds and put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of the one who created it” (Colossians 3:9–10), taking up the state of being “after the image of the Creator,” make within themselves statues of him, such as the God over all wishes.

Among sculptors some achieve their work marvellously, such as Phidias or Polyclitus, or among painters Zeuxis and Apelles; others make statues less well than these, and others again less well than those of the second rank; and, in a word, there is great difference in the making of statues and images. In the same way some make statues of the God over all better than others, and with perfect knowledge, so that there is no comparison between the Olympian Zeus that Phidias made and the one fashioned after the image of God the Creator (Colossians 3:10). But far better than all those in the whole creation, and surpassing them, is the statue in our Saviour, who says: “The Father is in me” (John 14:11).

Living statues where God dwells§18

18In each of those who, as far as they are able, have imitated him in this too, there is the statue “after the image of the Creator,” which they make by gazing on God with a pure heart (Matthew 5:8), having become “imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1). In short, all Christians try to set up altars such as we have described and statues such as we have shown. These are not lifeless and senseless, nor fit to receive the greedy demons who lie in wait by lifeless things. They are fit to receive the Spirit of God, who comes to dwell in the statues of virtue we have spoken of, and in what is “after the image of the Creator,” as in his own home. So too the Spirit of Christ settles upon those who are, if I may call them so, of one form with him.

It was because the word of God wished to set forth such things that it recorded God making this promise to the righteous: “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16); and the Saviour saying: “If anyone hears my words and does them, I and my Father will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).

Let anyone who wishes, then, compare the altars I have described with the altars Celsus speaks of, and the statues in the soul of those who are devout toward the God of the universe with the statues of Phidias and Polyclitus and their like. He will see clearly that those are lifeless and decay with time, but these remain in the immortal soul for as long as the rational soul wishes them to remain in it.

Our bodies are God’s temple§19

19If temples too must be set beside temples, so that we may show those who accept Celsus’s views that we do not shun setting up temples fit for the statues and altars we have described, but that we turn away from building lifeless and dead temples to the Giver of all life, let anyone who wishes hear how we are taught that our bodies are “a temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19), and that “if anyone,” through licentiousness or sin, “destroys the temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:17), he, as one truly impious toward the true temple, will be destroyed.

But the temple better and more excellent than all those so named was the holy and pure body of our Saviour Jesus. He knew that the temple of the God within him could be plotted against by the impious, yet not in such a way that the purpose of the plotters would be stronger than the Godhead that built the temple. So he says to them: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). And this “he was saying about the temple of his body” (John 2:21).

In another way, too, the divine Scriptures teach in a hidden sense what concerns the resurrection to those who can hear the words of God with a more divine hearing. They say that the temple will be built again with living and most precious stones, hinting that each of those who are of one spirit, through the same Word, in the piety that accords with him is a precious stone of the whole temple of God. So Peter says: “You are being built up, living stones and a spiritual house, for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5); and Paul: “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus our Lord himself being the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).

The passage in Isaiah, too, has some such hidden meaning. It reads as follows, addressed to Jerusalem: “Behold, I am preparing for you carbuncle as your stone, and sapphire as your foundations; and I will make your battlements of jasper, and your gates of crystal stones, and your outer wall of choice stones; and all your sons taught by God, and your children in great peace; and in righteousness you shall be built” (Isaiah 54:11–14).

Why we shun altars, statues and temples§20

20Some of the righteous, then, are carbuncle stone, others sapphire, others jasper, others crystal (Isaiah 54:11–12); and so the righteous are every kind of choice and precious stone. The meaning to be found in these stones, the account of their nature, and the kinds of souls to which the name of each precious stone can be applied, this is not the occasion to set out. It was necessary only to recall briefly the intent of our temples, and of the one temple of God made of precious stones.

For suppose that people in their several cities were taking pride, one against another, in what they count as temples. Those who were proud of their more costly temples would speak of the special excellences of their own in order to show up the inferior ones. In the same way, to those who accuse us because we do not think the divine should be worshipped in senseless temples, we set our own temples against theirs. And we show, at least to those who are not senseless and not like their senseless gods, that there is no comparison between our statues and the statues of the Gentiles; nor between our altars, with what I may call the incense rising from them, and their altars with the smoke of burnt fat and the blood; nor yet between the temples we have described and the temples of senseless gods, admired by senseless men who have not so much as formed a notion of the divine sense (Proverbs 2:5) by which one perceives God and his statues and temples and altars, those that are fitting for God.

It is not, then, to keep faith with a hidden and secret fellowship, nor as any token of that kind, that we shun setting up altars and statues and temples. Rather, because through the teaching of Jesus we have found the manner of piety toward the divine, we shun the things that, under a show of piety, make impious those who have strayed from the piety that comes through Jesus Christ. He alone is the “way” of piety, and he says truly: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Why we do not join the public festivals§21

21Let us look also at what Celsus says next about God, and at how he urges us to make use of what are in truth things sacrificed to idols, or, if I may so call them, things sacrificed to demons, though he himself, since he does not know what is truly sacred or what kind of sacrifices are offered to God, would call them “sacred offerings.” What he says is this: “God at any rate is common to all, good, in need of nothing, and free from envy. What then prevents those who are most devoted to Him from taking part in the public festivals as well?”

I do not know what notion led him to think that it follows from God’s being good, in need of nothing, and free from envy, that those devoted to Him should take part in the public festivals. And I say that it would indeed follow from God’s being good, in need of nothing, and free from envy, that they should take part in the public festivals themselves, if it were proved that the public festivals have nothing amiss in them and were instituted from the contemplation of God as fitting for His service and for piety toward Him. If, however, the public festivals, which are festivals in name only, have no reasoned proof that they suit the service of the divine, but are shown to be fictions of men who instituted them haphazardly on account of certain human stories, or fictions that seem to contain natural lore about water or earth or the fruits the earth bears, then plainly those who wish to worship the divine with careful judgment would be acting reasonably in not taking part in the public festivals.

For “a festival,” as one of the Greek wise men well says, “is nothing other than doing what one ought” (Thucydides 1.70). And he truly keeps festival who does “what he ought,” praying always (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and continually offering the bloodless sacrifices in his prayers to the divine. That is why Paul’s words seem to me most lofty: “Do you observe days and months and seasons and years? I fear for you, that I may somehow have labored over you in vain” (Galatians 4:10–11).

The perfect man keeps every feast at all times§22

22If anyone objects to this by pointing to our own customs on set days, the Lord’s days, the days of Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost, we must answer this too: the perfect man, who is always in the words, the works, and the thoughts of the Word of God, the One who is Lord by nature, is always in His days and always keeps the Lord’s days. Moreover, since he is always preparing himself for true life, abstaining from the pleasures of life that deceive the many, not feeding “the mind of the flesh” (Romans 8:6), but beating his “body” and bringing it into subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27), he always keeps the days of Preparation.

Further, he who has understood that “Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7), and that we must keep the feast (1 Corinthians 5:8) by eating of the flesh of the Word (John 6:53), never fails to keep the Passover, which means the crossing-over. For he is always crossing over, in his reasoning and in every word and every action, from the affairs of this life to God, and hastening toward His city.

Besides this, he who can say with truth, “We have risen with Christ” (Colossians 3:1), and also, “He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 2:6), is always in the days of Pentecost. This is above all so when, like the apostles of Jesus, he has gone up “into the upper room” (Acts 1:13) and gives himself to supplication and “prayer” (Acts 1:14), so as to become worthy of “the rushing of a mighty wind” from heaven (Acts 2:2), a wind that uses its might to wipe out the wickedness among men and all that comes from it, and worthy also of some share in a tongue of fire from God (Acts 2:3).

Set days for the many, an unending feast for the spiritual§23

23But the great number of those who are thought to believe, and who are not of such stature, are unwilling or unable to keep all days in this way, and so they need outward examples, perceived by the senses, to remind them, so that they do not drift away altogether (Hebrews 2:1). I think that Paul had this in mind when he called the festival kept on days set apart from the others a “part of a feast” (Colossians 2:16), and that by speaking in this way he hinted that the life lived at all times according to the divine Word is not “in part of a feast,” but in a feast that is complete and unceasing.

Consider then again, from what has been said about our festivals when they are set beside the public festivals of Celsus and of the nations, whether these festivals of ours are not far more worthy of reverence than the public ones, in which “the mind of the flesh” (Romans 8:6) keeps festival and runs riot, turning aside into drunkenness and licentiousness. It would take too long now to explain why the festivals according to the law of God teach us to eat “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3) or “unleavened bread with bitter herbs” (Exodus 12:8), or why they say, “Humble your souls” (Leviticus 16:29), or anything like these.

For it is not possible for man, who is composite, to keep festival with his whole being so long as “the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh” (Galatians 5:17). Either a man keeps festival in the spirit and afflicts the body, which because of “the mind of the flesh” (Romans 8:6) is not of a nature to keep festival together with the spirit; or he keeps festival according to the flesh, and has no room for the festival according to the spirit. But this is enough on the subject of festivals for the present.

The table of the Lord and the table of demons§24

24Let us see what arguments Celsus uses when he urges us to eat things sacrificed to idols and to share in the public sacrifices at the public festivals. What he says is this: “If these idols are nothing, what is so terrible about taking part in the common feast? But if there are certain demons, clearly these too belong to God, and we must trust them, and offer acceptable sacrifices to them according to the laws, and pray to them, so that they may be well disposed.”

To answer this it is useful to take in hand and make plain the whole discussion of “things sacrificed to idols” (1 Corinthians 8:1) that Paul gives in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. There, meeting the claim that “an idol is nothing in the world” (1 Corinthians 8:4), he established the harm that comes from eating things sacrificed to idols. He shows those who are able to understand what is said there that the one who partakes of things sacrificed to idols is doing nothing short of what a murderer does, since he destroys his own brothers, for whom “Christ died” (1 Corinthians 8:11). And after this, laying it down that what is sacrificed is sacrificed to demons (1 Corinthians 10:20), he shows that those who partake of “the table of demons” become “partners with demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20–21); and he shows that it is impossible for the same man to “partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21).

But since an exposition of what the Epistle to the Corinthians says on these matters requires a whole treatise, argued at greater length, we will be content with what has been briefly given. From it, anyone who examines it will see that even if the idols are nothing, it is none the less a terrible thing, even so, to take part in the common feast of the idols. We have also said enough on the point that even if there are certain demons to whom the sacrifices are offered, we ought not to partake of the offerings, since we know the difference between “the table of the Lord” and “the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). And because we know it, we do everything so that we may always partake of “the table of the Lord,” and guard ourselves in every way so that we may never become partners at the “table” of “demons.”

Demons do not belong to God§25

25Since Celsus says in these words that the demons too belong to God, and that for this reason we must trust them, and offer acceptable sacrifices to them according to the laws, and pray to them, so that they may be well disposed, we must teach those who are willing about this point too: the word of God is unwilling to call anything wicked God’s possession, since it judges such a thing unworthy of so great a Lord. That is why not all men are called men of God, but only those who are worthy of God, such as Moses (Deuteronomy 33:1) and Elijah (1 Kings 17:24), and anyone else who is recorded as “a man of God,” or who is like those so recorded.

So too not all angels are said to be “angels of God,” but only the blessed ones; while those who turned aside to wickedness are named angels of the devil (Matthew 25:41), just as wicked men are called men of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:3), or sons of pestilence (1 Samuel 2:12), or sons of unrighteousness. Among men, then, some are good and some are wicked, and for this reason some are said to be “of God” and others of the devil (1 John 3:10); and among “angels” too, some are “of God” and others of the evil one. But demons are not divided in two in this way, for all of them are shown to be wicked.

For this reason we will say that Celsus’s argument is false when he says: “But if there are certain demons, clearly these too belong to God.” Or else let anyone who wishes show either that the division made concerning men and angels is not sound, or that an account like it can be demonstrated in the case of demons as well. But if this cannot be done, it is plain that the demons do not belong to God; for their ruler is not God, but, as the divine words say, “Beelzebul” (Matthew 12:24).

We pray only to God, through His Word§26

26Nor must we put our trust in demons, even if Celsus urges us toward them. Instead, we must die rather than obey demons, and endure anything whatever in obeying God. In the same way we must not offer acceptable sacrifices to demons, for it is impossible to offer acceptable sacrifices to beings that are wicked and do harm to men.

And according to what laws does Celsus want us to offer acceptable sacrifices to the demons? If according to the laws established in the cities, let him prove that they agree with the divine laws. But if he cannot do this (for the laws of the many cities do not even agree with one another), then clearly they are either not laws in the proper sense, or laws of wicked men, which we must not trust; for “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Away, then, with the counsel of Celsus, who says that we must pray to demons; we must not listen to it even in the least. For we must pray to the God over all, and to Him alone; and indeed we must pray also to the only-begotten Word of God, “the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). And we must ask Him, as High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), to carry up our prayer, once it has reached Him, to His God and our God, and to His Father and the Father of those who live according to the Word of God (John 20:17).

Just as we would not wish to have men well disposed toward us who want us to live according to their own wickedness, if they are well disposed to none of those who choose the opposite course, since their goodwill makes us enemies of God, who perhaps does not become well disposed to those who wish to have such men well disposed toward them; in the same way, those who have understood the nature of demons, their will, and their wickedness would never wish to have the demons well disposed.

Guarded by God, we fear no demon§27

27For even if the demons are not well disposed toward them, they could suffer nothing from them, since they are guarded by the God over all, who is well disposed toward them because of their piety, and who sets His divine angels over those worthy of being guarded, so that they suffer nothing from the demons. He who has the God over all well disposed toward him through his piety toward Him, and through having received the Lord Jesus, God’s Angel “of Great Counsel” (Isaiah 9:6), and who is content with the goodwill of God through Christ Jesus, could say with confidence, as one who will suffer nothing from the whole army of demons: “The Lord is my light and my Savior; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). And he will also say: “If an army is drawn up against me, my heart will not fear” (Psalm 27:3).

So much, then, in answer to the words: “But if there are certain demons, clearly these too belong to God, and we must trust them, and offer acceptable sacrifices to them according to the laws, and pray to them, so that they may be well disposed.”

Celsus on abstaining from sacrificial meat§28

28Let us set out the next passage as well, and once again examine it as best we can. It runs as follows: “If, by some ancestral custom, they abstain from certain sacrificial victims of this kind, then they must surely abstain from eating any animal at all, as Pythagoras too thinks, who honours the soul and its instruments. But if, as they say, it is so that they may not feast with demons, I congratulate them on their wisdom, that they are slow to see that they are always the table-companions of demons. They guard against this only when they see a victim being sacrificed. But when they eat bread and drink wine and taste fruits, and drink even water itself and breathe the very air, do they not receive each of these from certain demons, to each of whom the care of his own share has been assigned?”

I do not know how he came to think it follows from this that those whom he described as abstaining from certain victims by some ancestral custom must abstain from eating any animal at all. And we do not say this as though the divine word did not also counsel such things, and did not say, for the sake of a safer and purer life: “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles” (Romans 14:21); and again: “Do not by your food destroy the one for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15); and again: “If meat makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, so that I may not make my brother stumble” (1 Corinthians 8:13).

Jesus and the apostles on foods§29

29It should be understood, however, that while the Jews think they understand the law of Moses, and in the matter of foods keep the rule of eating what they hold to be clean and abstaining from what is unclean, and also of not using an animal’s blood for food, nor what has been torn by wild beasts, and other such things (there is much to say about these, and for that reason this is not the right time to examine them), the teaching of Jesus wished to call all men to the pure worship of God, and not, on the pretext of a heavier law about foods, to hinder many of those whose character could be helped by Christianity. So it declared: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth” (Matthew 15:11). For what “goes into the mouth,” he says, “passes into the stomach and is cast out into the drain” (Matthew 15:17); but what comes out of the mouth are “evil thoughts” put into words, and “murders,” “adulteries,” “fornications,” “thefts,” “false witness,” and “blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19).

Paul too says: “Food will not commend us to God; for if we eat, we are no better off, and if we do not eat, we are no worse off” (1 Corinthians 8:8). Then, since these words have a certain obscurity unless they are spelled out, “it seemed good to the apostles” of Jesus “and to the elders” who had gathered together at Antioch, and, as they themselves put it, “to the Holy Spirit,” to write a letter to the believers from among the Gentiles (Acts 15:22–23, 28). The only foods this letter forbade them to eat were those which, as they put it, were “necessary”: that is, things offered to idols, or things strangled, or blood (Acts 15:28–29).

Why Christians abstain from certain foods§30

30For what is offered to idols is sacrificed to demons (1 Corinthians 10:20), and the man of God must not become a partaker in “the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). As for things strangled, from which the blood has not been drained (and blood, they say, is the food of demons, who feed on the vapours that rise from it), the word forbids them, so that we may not be fed with the food of demons; for perhaps some such spirits would be fed along with us if we ate things strangled. And from what has been said about “things strangled,” the reason for abstaining from “blood” can be made clear.

Now that I have come to these matters, it is not out of place for me to recall a most elegant saying, recorded in the Sentences of Sextus, which most Christians also read. It runs as follows: “The use of living creatures is a matter of indifference, but abstaining from them is more in keeping with reason” (Sentences of Sextus 109). So we do not abstain merely by some ancestral custom from what are held to be sacrificial victims and are offered to the so-called gods or heroes or demons, but for several reasons, some of which I have set out in part.

Nor is it the case that, just as one must abstain from all wickedness and from what comes of wickedness, so one must abstain from eating any animal at all. Rather, one must abstain not only from eating animals but from anything whatever, if our use of food should spring from wickedness and from what comes of wickedness. For one must abstain from eating out of gluttony, or because one is led by pleasure, without the aim of the body’s health and its care.

Since we in no way say that there is a transmigration of the soul and a fall of it as far down as the irrational animals, it is clear that, if we sometimes abstain from animals, it is not in the manner of Pythagoras that we refrain from using their flesh. For we know how to honour only the rational soul, and to commit its instruments with honour to burial according to custom. For it is right that the dwelling place of the rational soul should not be cast aside without honour, carelessly, like that of the irrational creatures; and above all because Christians have believed that honour reaches even to the body in which a rational soul has dwelt, since it received a soul that contended well through such an instrument. As for “How are the dead raised, and with what kind of body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35), we have shown this above in a few words, as this treatise required.

Unseen stewards and demon executioners§31

31After this, Celsus sets down what Christians and Jews alike say when they defend their abstaining from things offered to idols and declare that those who are devoted to the God over all must not feast with demons. It was in answer to this that he said what has been quoted. So far as foods and drinks are concerned, we know no other ways of feasting with demons than these: when someone eats what most people call sacred offerings, and drinks the wine of the libations poured to demons. But Celsus thinks that even the man who eats bread, and drinks wine in any way at all, and tastes fruits, feasts with demons. Indeed, even if someone takes only water, he says that in this too the drinker feasts with demons. And to this he adds that the man who breathes this air also receives it from certain demons, since the demons set over the air grant living creatures the air they breathe.

Let anyone who wishes, then, take the side of Celsus’s argument, and show how it is not certain divine angels of God, but demons, whose whole race is evil, who have been appointed to manage all the things just mentioned. For we too say that it is not without the oversight of invisible farmers, if I may call them so, and of other stewards, not only of what grows from the earth but also of all flowing water and of the air, that the earth brings forth what is said to be governed by nature, that water pours forth and runs in springs and in rivers that rise of themselves, and that the air is kept uncorrupted and becomes life-giving to those who breathe it.

Yet we do not say that these invisible beings are demons. But if one must venture to say something, and if these things really are the work of demons, we shall say this: famines, failures of the vine and of fruit trees, droughts, and also the corruption of the air to the ruin of crops, and sometimes even to the death of animals and to plague among men, all these the demons bring about with their own hands, as executioners. They have received authority by a certain divine judgment to work these things at certain times, either for the conversion of men who have been carried away into the flood of wickedness, or else for the training of the rational race.

This happens so that those who remain pious even amid such great calamities, and in no way become worse, may become manifest to the spectators, invisible and visible, who until then did not see their true state; while those who are disposed the opposite way but hide the display of their wickedness, being shown up by events for what they are, may become aware of themselves and may become plain to the spectators, if I may call them so.

We feast with angels, not demons§32

32The psalmist bears witness that by divine judgment the grimmer things are carried out by certain evil angels, when he says: “He sent upon them the wrath of his anger, anger and wrath and affliction, a mission by evil angels” (Psalm 78:49). If anything else besides these also happens when the demons are given leave, since they always wish to do such things but cannot always do them because they are restrained, let whoever is able examine it, picturing the divine judgment, so far as human nature can, concerning the release of many souls from the body all at once, by such roads as lead to that death which is neither good nor evil.

For “great are the judgments of God,” and because of their greatness they cannot be grasped by a mind still bound to a mortal body; that is why they are also “hard to describe” (Wisdom of Solomon 17:1), and to uninstructed souls they cannot be seen in even the smallest measure. That is also why the more rash, through their ignorance of these matters and the scrutiny their rashness turns upon the divine, add to the impious doctrines against providence.

We do not, then, receive from demons each of the things that serve the needs of life, especially those of us who have learned to use them as we ought. Nor do those who partake of bread and wine and fruits and water and air feast with demons, but rather with divine angels appointed over such things. These angels are, as it were, invited to the table of the pious man who has heard the word that teaches such things as this: “Whether you eat or drink or do anything, do all things to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And again in another place it is written: “Whether you eat or drink,” do all things “in the name” of God (Colossians 3:17; 1 Corinthians 10:31).

So when we eat and drink and breathe “to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), and do all things according to the word, we feast with none of the demons, but with the divine angels. For “every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4–5). But it would not be “good,” nor could it be sanctified, if, as Celsus thinks, these things had been assigned to demons.

Thanks to the Creator, not to demons§33

33From this it is clear that we have also answered what he says next, which runs as follows: “Either, then, one must not live at all, anywhere, nor come into this world; or one who has come into life on these terms must give thanks to the demons who have been allotted the things on earth, and render them first-fruits and prayers as long as we live, so that we may find them kind to men.”

We must indeed live, and we must live according to the word of God, so far as is possible and so far as it is granted to live according to it. And it is granted when, whether we eat or drink, we do “all things to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). We must not refuse to use, with thanksgiving to the Creator, the works he has made for our sake. It is on these terms, rather than those Celsus thinks, that we have been brought into life by God; and we are not subject to demons, but to the God over all, through Jesus Christ, who has brought us to him (1 Peter 3:18).

By the laws of God no demon has been allotted the things on earth. But because of their own lawlessness, perhaps they have shared out among themselves the places where the knowledge of God and of the life that accords with him is wholly lacking, or where those estranged from the divine are many. Or perhaps, as fit to be overseers and punishers of the wicked, they were appointed by the Word who governs the universe to rule over those who have made themselves subject to wickedness and not to God.

For such reasons, then, let Celsus, as one who does not know God, render his thank-offerings to demons. But we, giving thanks to the Maker of the universe, also eat the loaves that are offered with thanksgiving and prayer over the gifts. Through the prayer these loaves become a body, something holy, which sanctifies those who use it with a sound purpose.

Our first-fruits go to the Creator§34

34Celsus would have first-fruits, too, dedicated to demons. But we dedicate them to the One who said, “Let the earth bring forth the green plant, sowing seed according to its kind and likeness, and the fruit tree bearing fruit whose seed is in it according to its kind upon the earth” (Genesis 1:11). And to the One to whom we render our first-fruits we also send up our prayers, “having a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God” (Hebrews 4:14), and we hold fast “the confession” (Hebrews 4:14) as long as we live, finding God and his Only-begotten, who is made manifest to us in Jesus, kind toward us.

And if we long also for a multitude of beings whose kindness we wish to win, we learn “that a thousand thousands stood beside him, and ten thousand times ten thousand ministered to him” (Daniel 7:10). These, seeing as their kindred and friends those who imitate their own piety toward God, work together for the salvation of those who call upon God and pray sincerely. They appear to them, and they think they must listen to them and, as if at a single signal, come among them to benefit and save those who pray to God, to whom they themselves also pray. For “they are all ministering spirits, sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).

Let the wise men of the Greeks, then, say that demons have been allotted the human soul from its birth. But Jesus taught us not to despise even “the little ones” in the Church, saying that “their angels always behold the face of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:10), and the prophet says, “The angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him, and will deliver them” (Psalm 34:7).

So we too do not deny that there are many demons on earth. We say that they exist and have power among the wicked because of the wickedness of such people, but that they have no power against those who have put on “the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:11) and have taken up strength “to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11, 13), and who are always studying their wrestling holds, because they know “that our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

Would God’s officers take revenge?§35

35Let us consider another passage of Celsus too, which runs thus: “Or could the satrap, governor, general or procurator of the king of the Persians or of the Romans, and even those who hold lesser offices, charges or services, do great harm if neglected, while the satraps and ministers of the air and of the earth would do little harm if insulted?”

See how he brings in satraps of the God over all, modelled on human ones, with governors, generals and procurators, and those who hold lesser offices, charges and services, doing great harm to those who insult them. He does not see that not even a wise man would wish to harm anyone, but would rather, as far as he could, turn even those who insult him and make them better. Unless, perhaps, the satraps, governors and generals of the God over all, as Celsus pictures them, are worse than Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans, and Zeno of Citium. For Lycurgus, when he was given power over the man who had knocked out his eye, not only took no revenge on him but never stopped working on him with persuasive words until he had won him over to philosophy. And Zeno, when someone said to him, “May I perish if I do not punish you,” replied, “And I, if I do not make you my friend.”

And I do not yet speak of those whose character has been formed by the teaching of Jesus and who have heard the words, “Love your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you, so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:44–45). And in the prophetic writings the righteous man says such things as these: “O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is unrighteousness in my hands, if I have repaid with evil those who repaid me, then may I fall back empty-handed from my enemies; then may the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life into the ground” (Psalm 7:3–5).

Demons cannot harm those devoted to God§36

36But the true satraps, governors, generals and procurators of God, the angels, do not harm those who insult them, as Celsus thinks. And if some demons, of the kind Celsus too has pictured, do harm, they harm as wicked beings who have been entrusted by God with no satrapy, command or stewardship; and they harm those who are subject to them and have submitted to them as masters.

Perhaps it is for this reason too that people in each place who break the law about foods that custom says must not be eaten are harmed, if they are among those under those demons. But if some are not under them and have not submitted themselves to the demon of the place, they are free from suffering at their hands, having bidden a long farewell to such demons; yet if, through ignorance about other things, they have submitted themselves to other demons, they can suffer at the hands of those.

But a Christian, a true Christian, who has submitted himself to God alone and to his Word, would suffer nothing from demons, since he is stronger than demons. And he would certainly suffer nothing, since “the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him, and will deliver them” (Psalm 34:7), and his angel, who “always” beholds “the face of the Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:10), ever carries up his prayers through the only High Priest to the God of the universe, and himself prays together with the one entrusted to his care.

So let Celsus not frighten us with bogeys, threatening us with harm from the demons if we neglect them. For demons, if neglected, could do nothing to us who are devoted to the One who alone is able to help all who are worthy, and who no less sets his own angels over those who are devout toward him, so that neither the opposing angels nor the one who is called their “ruler of this age” (compare 1 Corinthians 2:6; John 12:31) can do anything against those who are devoted to God.

God hears prayer in every language§37

37Then, forgetting that he is talking to Christians, who pray to God alone through Jesus, and mixing up what belongs to others and attaching it to Christians without reason, he says: “If one names them in a barbarian tongue they will have power, but if in Greek or Latin, no longer.”

Let him show, then, whom we name in a barbarian tongue as though calling on him for help. And let anyone who observes the following be persuaded that Celsus said these things against us to no purpose: that Christians in general do not even use, in their prayers, the names that are set down in the divine Scriptures and applied to God. Rather, the Greeks use Greek names and the Romans Latin ones, and so each prays to God in his own language and sings his praise as best he can. And the Lord of every language hears those who pray in every language as though he heard, if I may put it so, a single voice, the voice of what they mean, made plain through the varied languages. For the God over all is not one of those who have been allotted some language, barbarian or Greek, and who know none of the others, or do not know how to attend to those who speak in other languages.

Christians do not revile the statues§38

38Then after this, having heard either no Christian at all or some lawless and uneducated one from among the many, he says that Christians say: “Look, I stand beside the statue of Zeus or Apollo or any god you please, and I revile it and strike it, and it does nothing to avenge itself on me.”

He does not see that in the divine law it is also commanded, “You shall not revile gods” (Exodus 22:28), so that our mouths may not grow used to reviling anyone at all; for we hear, “Bless, and do not curse” (Romans 12:14), and we are taught that “revilers” will not “inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10). Who among us is so foolish as to say such things, and not see that a thing of this kind does nothing to overthrow the belief in the reputed gods? For even those who are wholly godless, who have done away with providence and by their wicked and impious doctrines have founded a school of so-called philosophers, have not themselves suffered any of the things that the many regard as evils, nor have those who embraced their doctrines; on the contrary, they are rich and healthy in body.

But if anyone looks for harm in them, let him see that they are the ones truly harmed. For what greater harm is there than not to perceive the Maker from the order of the world? And what misery is worse than to have one’s mind blinded and not to see the Creator and Father of every mind?

Jesus is no demon§39

39Having put such words in our mouths and slandered Christians, who say no such things, he thinks he is furnishing himself with a defence, though it is a jest rather than a defence. In it he says, as if to us: “Do you not see, my good man, that someone takes his stand and not only blasphemes even your demon, but has him banished by proclamation from every land and sea, and binds you, who are consecrated to him like a statue, leads you away and impales you; and the demon, or, as you say, the Son of God, takes no vengeance on him?”

This defence would have had some place if we used such words as he has written down that we say; and yet even then he would not have spoken the truth in calling the Son of God a demon. In our view, since we say that all demons are wicked, the One who turned so many people to God is not a demon but God the Word and Son of God. But according to Celsus, who has made nothing plain about wicked demons and has forgotten himself, how I do not know, Jesus is called a demon.

Later, however, after all the remedies that they did not accept, what is said about the ungodly will come upon those who are found in what one might call incurable wickedness.

The mills of the gods and the justice of God§40

40We, for our part, whatever we may say about punishment, do turn many from their sins through the teaching about punishment. But let us consider what sort of answer the priest of Apollo or of Zeus gives in Celsus’s account: “Late,” he says, “grind the mills of the gods, even to children’s children, who may be born later.”

See how much better than this are the words, “Fathers shall not die for children, nor shall sons die for fathers; each shall die for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16), and this, “The one who ate the sour grape shall have his teeth set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:30), and this, “A son shall not bear the unrighteousness of his father, and a father shall not bear the unrighteousness of his son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the lawlessness of the lawless shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).

But if anyone says that the words, “repaying the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Deuteronomy 5:9; compare Exodus 20:5), are like “to children’s children, who may be born later,” let him learn that in Ezekiel such a saying is called a “parable” (Ezekiel 18:2–3), where the prophet blames those who say, “The fathers ate a sour grape, and the children’s teeth were set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2; compare Jeremiah 31:29), and to this is added, “As I live, says the Lord” (Ezekiel 18:3), “but each shall die for his own sin” (Jeremiah 31:30). This is not the right time to explain what the parable means about “sins” being repaid “to the third and fourth generation.”

We revile neither statues nor demons§41

41Next, railing at us like old women, he says: “You revile their statues and laugh at them. But if you had reviled Dionysus himself or Heracles while he was present, perhaps you would not have got away with it. Yet those who stretched out and punished your God when he was present suffered nothing for doing it, nor even afterwards, in all the long life that followed. What new thing has happened since then to make anyone believe that he was not a human sorcerer but a child of God? And the one who sent his son for the sake of certain messages, it seems, looked on while he was punished so cruelly that the messages were destroyed with him, and in all the time that has passed since then he has paid no heed. What father is so unholy? Now perhaps he wished it, as you say, and that is why he suffered outrage. But as for these whom you blaspheme, one could have said that they too wish it, and for that reason bear being blasphemed; for it is best to compare like with like. But these at least take vigorous vengeance on the one who blasphemes them, so that he either flees for this reason and hides, or is caught and perishes.”

To this I would answer that we revile no one, for we are persuaded that “revilers” will not “inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10), and we read, “Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28), and, “Bless, and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). We know also the saying, “When reviled, we bless” (1 Corinthians 4:12). And if reviling has some justification as self-defence for one who thinks he has been wronged, yet the word of God does not allow us even this, how much more must we refrain from reviling where reviling shows great folly? It is equally foolish to revile stone or gold or silver, shaped into the form of gods that is customary among those who are far from the divine. So we do not laugh at the lifeless images either, but, if at anyone, at those who worship them.

Nor, even if there are demons settled in certain statues, and one of them is thought to be Dionysus and another Heracles, do we revile them either. Such a thing is futile, and in no way fits the man who is gentle, peaceable and calm of soul, and who has learned that one must not revile anyone, man or demon, even for his wickedness.

The city that crucified Jesus§42

42I do not know how Celsus has fallen, without meaning to, into showing by the facts that those whom a little earlier he praised as demons or gods are thoroughly base, taking revenge to repay an injury rather than punishing to correct, whenever someone reviles them. For he says: “If you had reviled Dionysus himself or Heracles while he was present, perhaps you would not have got away with it.” Let anyone who wishes explain how one who is not present hears anything, and why he is sometimes present and sometimes not, and what business demons have in moving from place to place.

After this he goes on, supposing that we call God the body of Jesus that was stretched out and punished, and not the divinity in him, and that it was held to be God at the time it was stretched out and punished: “But those who stretched out and punished your God when he was present suffered nothing for doing it.” We have said a good deal earlier about the human sufferings he underwent, and now we pass over the subject on purpose, so as not to seem to repeat ourselves.

But since he says that those who punished Jesus suffered nothing even afterwards, in all the long life that followed, we will show him, and all who wish to learn, what became of the city in which the Jewish people demanded that Jesus be crucified, saying, “Crucify, crucify him” (Luke 23:21). For they preferred that the robber, who had been thrown “into prison for insurrection and murder,” be released, “but Jesus” (Luke 23:19; Luke 23:25), who had been handed over “out of envy” (Matthew 27:18; Mark 15:10), be crucified. Not long afterwards that city was attacked in war and besieged for so long a time that it was overturned from its foundations and laid waste. For God judged those who lived in that place unworthy of the life that people share in common. Indeed, if I may say something strange, it was in sparing them, and seeing that they were past cure and could not be changed for the better, and were growing every day in the flood of their wickedness, that he handed them over to their enemies. And these things happened because of the blood of Jesus, poured out through their plot upon their land, which could no longer bear those who had dared so great a sacrilege against Jesus.

A holy Father and a grain of wheat§43

43So something new has indeed happened since the time when Jesus suffered: I mean what befell the city and the whole nation, and the sudden birth of a nation of Christians, born, as it were, all at once (Isaiah 66:8). New too is this, that those who were strangers to “the covenants” of God and aliens from the promises (Ephesians 2:12), those far from the truth, have received it by a certain divine power. These were not the doings of a human sorcerer but the works of God. He sent, for the sake of his messages, his own Word in Jesus, who was punished so cruelly that the cruelty is charged against those who punished him unjustly, and who bore it with the greatest courage and with all gentleness.

His punishment did not destroy God’s messages but, if it must be put this way, made them known; as Jesus himself taught when he said, “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). So by dying, Jesus, “the grain of wheat,” bore “much fruit,” and the Father always takes care of the fruits that have come, still come, and will yet come from the death of the grain “of wheat.” A holy father, then, is the Father of Jesus, who did not spare “his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32), him who was his own lamb, so that “the Lamb of God,” who dies for the whole world, might take away “the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And for the world’s sake he endured, not under compulsion but willingly, the things the insolent inflicted on him.

Then, after this, Celsus takes up again his argument against those who blaspheme the statues, and says: “But as for these whom you blaspheme, one could have said that they too wish it, and for that reason bear being blasphemed; for it is best to compare like with like. But these at least take vigorous vengeance on the one who blasphemes them, so that he either flees for this reason and hides, or is caught and perishes.” It is not, then, as blasphemers that the demons think they take vengeance on Christians, but as those who drive them out of the images and out of human bodies and souls. For without understanding what happens, Celsus has said something true on this point. It is true that the souls of those who condemn Christians, of those who betray them, and of those who delight in making war on Christians, are filled with wicked demons.

Martyrs break the power of demons§44

44But the souls of those who die for Christianity out of piety, leaving the body with glory, were pulling down the power of the demons and weakening their plots against mankind. That, I think, is why the demons, having learned by experience that they were being defeated and overcome by the martyrs of the truth, were afraid to return to taking vengeance. And so, until they forget the pains they have suffered, the world is likely to be at peace with Christians. But when they gather their strength, and, blinded by wickedness, wish again to take vengeance and to persecute Christians, they will be pulled down again; and then once more the souls of the godly, who for piety’s sake put off their bodies, will pull down the army of the evil one.

For my part I think that the demons, perceiving that those who conquer and die for piety pull down their dominion, while those who are overcome by the pains and deny their reverence for God become subject to them, sometimes strive hard against the Christians who are handed over, as though they were tormented by their confession and relieved by their denial. Traces of this may be seen in the judges too, who are tormented by those who endure the outrages and the tortures, but exult whenever a Christian is defeated. Nor is it out of the kindness they seem to have that they do this, since they see plainly that the “tongue” of those overcome by pain “has sworn, but the mind” is “unsworn” (Euripides, Hippolytus 612).

This too in reply to his words: “But these at least take vigorous vengeance on the one who blasphemes them, so that he either flees for this reason and hides, or is caught and perishes.” Even if a Christian flees, he does not flee from cowardice, but in keeping with the command of his Teacher (Matthew 10:23), and he keeps himself pure for the salvation of others who are yet to be helped.

Celsus’s list of oracles and portents§45

45Let us look also at what comes next, which runs as follows: “Why need I list all that has been foretold with inspired voice, partly from the oracles by prophets and prophetesses, partly by other men and women who were possessed? All the marvels that have been heard from the inner shrines themselves? All that has been made known to inquirers from victims and sacrifices, and all from other portentous signs? To some, clear visions have appeared. All of life is full of these things. How many cities have been restored by oracles and rid themselves of plagues and famines, and how many, by neglecting or forgetting them, have been miserably destroyed? How many have been sent out to found a colony and, by carrying out what was commanded, have prospered? How many rulers, how many private persons, have fared better or worse because of this? How many, distressed at being childless, gained what they prayed for and escaped the wrath of demons? How many have been healed of bodily maiming? How many again, after committing outrage at the temples, were caught at once, some seized with madness on that very spot, others even confessing what they had done, others taking their own lives, others bound fast by incurable diseases? And before now a dreadful voice from the inner shrines themselves has struck some down.”

I do not know how Celsus brings these things forward as clearly true, while he has held that the wonders recorded among us, whether those of the Jews or those about Jesus and his disciples, are myths. Why should ours not be true, and what Celsus tells be fabricated myths? Not even the philosophical schools of the Greeks have believed his stories, such as the schools of Democritus, Epicurus and Aristotle. Yet perhaps they would have believed ours, because of their clear evidence, if they had met Moses, or one of the prophets who worked marvels, or Jesus himself.

Our prophets did all this and more§46

46The Pythia is recorded to have once given oracles even after she had been bribed. But our prophets were admired for the clear truth of what they said, not only by the people of their own day but in later times as well. For through the oracles the prophets gave, cities were restored, men were made well, and famines came to an end. Indeed, the whole nation of the Jews plainly went out as a colony from Egypt to Palestine in keeping with oracles; when it carried out what God commanded, it prospered, and when it went astray, it repented. Why need I tell how many rulers and how many private persons, according to the histories of Scripture, fared better or worse by heeding the prophecies or neglecting them?

And if we must speak of childlessness too, and of those who, distressed at it, became fathers or mothers after sending up their prayers about it to the Maker of the universe, let anyone read the story of Abraham and Sarah, from whom Isaac was born when they were already old (Genesis 21:1–7), the father of the whole Jewish nation and of others besides. Let him read also the story of Hezekiah, who not only gained release from his illness in keeping with the prophecies of Isaiah (Isaiah 38:1–8), but also said with confidence: “For from now on I will beget children, who will declare your righteousness” (Isaiah 38:19). And in the second book of Kings, the woman who received Elisha, after he had prophesied by the grace of God that a child would be born, became a mother in answer to Elisha’s prayers (2 Kings 4:8–17).

Besides, countless maimings were healed by Jesus. And others who dared, at the temple in Jerusalem, to outrage the Jewish worship suffered what is recorded in the books of the Maccabees (2 Maccabees 3:24–28).

Weighing the wonders by their results§47

47But the Greeks will say that these things are myths, even though two whole nations bear witness that they are true. And why are the stories of the Greeks not myths rather than these? Suppose, however, that someone meets the argument head on, and, so as not to seem to accept his own accounts arbitrarily while disbelieving those of others, says that the Greek wonders too were done by certain demons; the Jewish ones either by God through the prophets, or by the angels, or by God through the angels; and the Christian ones by Jesus and by His power at work in the apostles. Come, then, let us set them all side by side and look at the end that those who worked them had in view, and at the benefit or harm, or neither, that came of it to those who received what were thought to be benefits.

Will such a person not see that the Jewish nation of old was a nation of philosophers, before they behaved outrageously toward the Divine, by whom they were forsaken because of their great wickedness; and that the Christians, who came together against all expectation, were drawn at the beginning more by wonders than by words of exhortation to abandon their ancestral ways and to choose ways foreign to those of their fathers? For if we must also use the argument from likelihood about how the Christians first came together, we shall say that it is not credible that the apostles of Jesus, unlettered and ordinary men (Acts 4:13), took courage to proclaim Christianity to men from anything other than the power given to them and the grace in their word for setting forth the things it proclaimed; nor is it credible that those who heard them were moved from long-standing ancestral customs, unless some remarkable power and wondrous deeds had moved them toward teachings so strange and so foreign to those they had been brought up with.

Which teachers of punishment change lives§48

48Then, I do not know how, Celsus, after bringing forward the zeal of those who contend even to death rather than forswear Christianity, goes on as though putting our teachings on a level with what the initiators and mystagogues say, and he says: “Indeed, my good sir, just as you believe in eternal punishments, so too do the interpreters of those sacred rites, the initiators and mystagogues. You threaten others with them, and they threaten you. For one may well examine which of the two are truer or more powerful. As far as words go, you and they alike affirm your own claims with equal confidence; but if proofs were needed, they display many clear ones, bringing forward the works of certain demonic powers and of oracles, and proofs drawn from divinations of every kind.”

By this, then, he would have it that we and the initiators alike speak of eternal punishments, and he wants to inquire which of the two speak more truly. I would say that those speak the truth who have been able to bring their hearers to live as men convinced that these things are so. Jews and Christians are so convinced about what they call the age to come, and about the rewards in it for the righteous and the punishments for sinners. Let Celsus, then, or anyone who wishes, show who have been brought to such conviction about eternal punishments by the initiators and mystagogues. For it is likely that the aim of anyone who fathers such teachings is not merely to discharge a formality by speaking about punishments, but to bring his hearers, as far as lies in their power, to guard against doing the things that lead to punishment.

Moreover, to those who read them with care, the prophecies seem to me enough, by the foreknowledge they contain, to persuade anyone who reads with understanding and fairness that the Spirit of God was in those men. With these prophecies none of the demonic works that are displayed, none of the powers that come from oracles, and none of the divinations can be compared in the slightest degree.

Celsus mocks our hope for the body§49

49Let us look also at what Celsus says to us next, which runs as follows: “And further, how is this not absurd of you, to long for the body and to hope that this very body will rise again, as though nothing in us were better or more precious than it, and then again to cast it into punishments as a thing without honour? But with those who are persuaded of this and are wedded to the body it is not worth reasoning about this matter; for these are people who are boorish and unclean in other respects too, and who, without reason, share in the sickness of faction. But those who hope that the soul or the mind (whether they wish to call it spiritual, or an intellectual spirit, holy and blessed, or a living soul (Genesis 2:7), or the incorruptible offspring, from beyond the heavens, of a divine and bodiless nature, or whatever name they like to give it) will be theirs for ever with God, with these I will reason. They are right at least in believing this: that those who have lived well will be happy, while the unjust will be held wholly in the grip of eternal evils. And from this doctrine let neither these nor any other man ever depart.”

As to the resurrection, even if he himself has already reproached us with it many times, we have set forth, as best we could, what seemed reasonable to us on that subject, and we do not intend to make our defence many times over against one charge made many times over. But Celsus slanders us when he says that we think nothing in our make-up better or more precious than the body. For we say that the soul, and above all the rational soul, is a thing more precious than any body, since the soul can receive what is “according to the image of Him who created” it (Colossians 3:10), while the body cannot at all. For in our view God is not a body either, and so we do not fall into the absurdities into which those fall who follow the philosophy of Zeno and Chrysippus.

Why we long for the resurrection§50

50Since he also reproaches us as men who long for the body, let him know that if longing is a bad thing, we long for nothing; but if it is neither good nor bad, we long for all that God promises to the righteous. In this way, then, we long for and hope for the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:14). Celsus thinks, too, that we contradict ourselves when we hope for the resurrection of the body as worthy of honour from God, and yet cast it into punishments as without honour. Now nothing is without honour that suffers for the sake of piety and chooses hardships for the sake of virtue; but everything is without honour that is consumed in pleasures joined with wickedness. So the divine word too says: “What seed is honoured? The seed of man. What seed is without honour? The seed of man” (Sirach 10:19).

Then Celsus thinks that one ought not to reason with those who hope for what concerns the body, since they are irrationally wedded to a thing that cannot attain what they hope for. He calls them boorish and unclean, and says they keep company with faction without reason, when he ought, as a lover of mankind, to help even the more boorish. For the circle of fellowship has not been drawn so as to shut out the more boorish among men, as it shuts out the irrational animals; rather, He who made us made us fit for fellowship with all men alike. It is worthwhile, then, to reason with the boorish too, and to bring them, as far as we can, to greater refinement; and with the unclean, and to make them, as far as possible, cleaner; and with those who, whatever they think, think it without reason and are sick in soul, so that they may no longer do anything without reason nor be sick in soul.

Celsus should have defended the doctrine he approves§51

51After this he approves of those who hope that the soul, or the mind, or what they call the spiritual or rational spirit, intellectual, holy and blessed, or the living soul (Genesis 2:7), will be theirs for ever and will be with God; and he admits as rightly held both the doctrine that those who have lived well will be happy and the doctrine that the unjust will be held wholly in the grip of eternal evils. And of all that Celsus says, what amazes me most is what he adds to these words, where he says: “And from this doctrine let neither these nor any other man ever depart.”

Writing against Christians, for whom the whole foundation of faith is God, and the promises made through Christ concerning the righteous, and the teachings about punishment concerning the unjust, he ought to have seen this: a Christian overthrown by accepting Celsus’s arguments against Christians would in all likelihood, in throwing away the teaching, throw away with it the very doctrine from which, he says, neither Christians nor any other man should depart.

But Chrysippus, I think, acted more humanely than Celsus in his Therapeutic book On the Passions. Wishing to heal the passions, since they press hard upon the human soul and trouble it, he does so first by the arguments that seemed sound to him, but secondly and thirdly even by doctrines that did not please him. “For even if there are three kinds of goods,” he says, “even so the passions must be healed; one should not, while the passions are inflamed, busy oneself with the doctrine that has already taken hold of the one troubled by passion, so that the cure that is still possible may not be lost through untimely labour over overturning the doctrines that have already seized the soul.” And he says: “Even if pleasure is the good, and the one mastered by passion thinks so, he must none the less be helped and shown that every passion is inconsistent even with the views of those who make pleasure the good and the end.”

Celsus too, then, once he had said that he accepted the doctrines that those who have lived well will be happy and that the unjust will be held wholly in the grip of eternal evils, ought to have acted consistently with himself, and, if he could, after what seemed to him the principal argument, to have built further upon it and to have shown with further arguments that the unjust will truly be held wholly in the grip of eternal evils and that those who have lived well will be happy.

Persuading outsiders of the judgment to come§52

52For we too, first of all, because of the many, indeed countless, things that have persuaded us to live according to Christianity, wish, as far as we can, to win all men over to the whole of the Christian teaching. But where we find people already prejudiced by slander against Christians, so that, imagining that Christians are not even pious, they will not so much as lend their ears to those who offer to teach them the things of the divine word, there, out of love for mankind, we take our stand as best we can, so that by establishing at least the doctrines about eternal punishment for the ungodly, we may bring even those who are unwilling to become Christians to accept that teaching.

In the same way we wish to instil conviction about those who have lived well too, since we see that even those who are strangers to the faith say many of the same things as we do about a sound way of life. For one would not find anyone who has wholly lost the common notions about what is noble and what is shameful, what is just and what is unjust.

Let all men, then, seeing the world and the ordered motion in it of the heavens and of the fixed stars, and the order of the so-called planets, which move contrary to the motion of the world; seeing also the tempering of the air for the good of living things, and above all of men, and the abundance of things made for the sake of men, beware of doing anything displeasing to the Creator of the universe and of their own souls and of the mind within them. And let them be convinced that they will be punished for their sins, and that they will be led by Him who orders each according to his desert to rewards in proportion to their right actions or to the works they have duly performed. And let all men be convinced that for their better deeds they will fare well, while the wicked will be wretchedly handed over to toils and torments for their injustices, their licentiousness and intemperance, and also for their unmanliness, their cowardice, and all their folly.

Celsus should at least have doubted§53

53Having said this much on this passage as well, let us look at another statement of Celsus, which runs thus: “Since men are born bound to a body — whether for the sake of the ordering of the universe, or paying the penalty for sin, or because the soul is weighed down by certain passions until it is cleansed in the appointed cycles, for according to Empedocles ‘thrice ten thousand seasons it must wander far from the blessed, becoming in the course of time every kind of mortal form’ (Empedocles, fragment 115) — we must therefore believe that they have been handed over to certain keepers of this prison.”

See how here too he wavers, as a man will, over so many questions, and by setting out the opinions of several thinkers on the cause of our coming into being he shows a certain caution, not daring to declare any one of them false. Would it not, then, have befitted such a man, once he had resolved neither to assent at random nor boldly to set aside the views of the ancients, at least to doubt, if he did not wish to believe, about the teaching of the Jews set forth in their prophets and about Jesus? Would it not have befitted him to consider that it was likely that those who served the God of all, and who for the sake of honour toward him and toward what they believed he had laid down as law often accepted countless dangers and deaths, were not overlooked by God, but that some manifestation came to them also, since they had disdained the works of human art in statues and tried to ascend by reason to the God over all himself?

He ought to have considered that the common Father and Creator of all, who sees all things and hears all things, judges according to its worth the choice of each person that seeks him and wishes to be devout, and grants to these also some fruit of his protection, so that they may further increase the conception of him which they have once received. For if Celsus had reasoned this out, and with him those who hate Moses and the prophets among the Jews, and Jesus, and his genuine disciples who wore themselves out for the sake of his word, they would not have heaped such abuse on Moses and the prophets and Jesus and his apostles. Nor would they have rejected the Jews alone of all the nations on earth, saying that they were worse even than the Egyptians, who, as far as lay in them, brought the honour paid to the divine down even to irrational animals, whether from superstition or for whatever other cause or error.

We have said this not to urge anyone to doubt about the Christian teaching, but to show that for those who revile the teaching of Christians in every way it would be better at least to doubt about these matters, and not to speak so rashly about Jesus or his disciples. For they speak of things they do not know, and they make their declarations without what the Stoics call the cognitive impression and without any other criterion; and on the criterion each school of philosophers has argued for its own view, as it thought best.

The prisoners whom Jesus sets free§54

54Then, since Celsus says, “We must therefore believe that they are handed over to certain keepers of this prison,” we must answer him that a virtuous soul is set free from the bonds of wickedness even while it is still in the life of those whom Jeremiah called “prisoners of the earth” (Lamentations 3:34). It is set free thanks to Jesus, who spoke as the prophet Isaiah foretold long before his coming. And what did Isaiah foretell him as saying, if not, “To the prisoners, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be brought to light” (Isaiah 49:9)? This is indeed Jesus, as the same Isaiah foretold of him: “On those sitting in the region and shadow of death a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16). And so, because of this, we say, “Let us burst their bonds and cast their yoke away from us” (Psalm 2:3).

If Celsus, and those who are set against us as he is, could hear the depth of the Gospels, he would not have advised us to obey those he called keepers of the prison. It is written in the Gospel that a certain woman “was bent double and unable to straighten herself fully” (Luke 13:11). When Jesus saw her, and saw why she was bent double, not being allowed to straighten herself “fully”, he said, “And this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, ought she not to have been loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16). How many others now, bound by Satan, are bent double, unable because of him to “straighten themselves fully”, since he wants us to look downward? And no one sets them upright except the Word who came to dwell in Jesus, and who also inspired men before that. Jesus came to set free “all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38). And of the devil he said, with a depth befitting him, “Now the ruler of this world has been judged” (John 16:11; John 12:31).

We do not, then, revile the demons here on earth; rather, we expose their workings for the destruction of the human race. Under the pretext of oracles, of healing bodies, and of certain other things, they seek to separate from God the soul that has fallen into “the body of humiliation” (Philippians 3:21). Those who have understood the soul so fallen cry aloud, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24).

Yet we do not offer our bodies to be racked and beaten to death without reason. For the one who is plotted against by the demons and by those who worship them, because he will not let the earthly demons be proclaimed gods, does not give up his body to these things without reason. And we have rightly held that it is pleasing to God to be beaten to death for virtue, to be racked for piety, and to die for holiness. For “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones” (Psalm 116:15). And we say that it is good, too, not to cling to life.

Celsus likens us to criminals, who deservedly endure what they suffer for robbery; and, showing no reverence for so great a purpose, he declares it to be like the disposition of robbers. In this he makes himself a brother of those who reckoned Jesus “among the lawless”, in whose case the scripture was fulfilled that says, “He was reckoned among the lawless” (Isaiah 53:12; Mark 15:28; Luke 22:37).

Celsus’s two choices§55

55Next Celsus says: “Reason makes us choose one of two courses. If they refuse to give the overseers of these things the service that befits them, then they should neither take a husband nor take a wife nor raise children nor do anything else in life, but depart from here one and all, leaving no seed behind, so that such a race might be wholly wiped out from the earth. But if they are going to take wives and have children and taste the fruits and share in the things of life and bear the evils appointed for them — for this is the way of nature, that all men experience evils; for evils must exist, and they have no other place (see Plato, Theaetetus 176a) — then they must render the fitting honours to those who have been entrusted with these things, and perform the duties that befit life until they are released from their bonds, so that they may not also seem ungrateful toward these beings. For it is unjust to share in what they possess and contribute nothing to them.”

To this too we say that no departure from life seems reasonable to us except that alone which is for the sake of piety and virtue: when those who are thought to sit as judges, or who seem to have power over our life, set before us one of two things, either to live while doing what is contrary to the commands of Jesus, or to die while obeying his words.

But God has also allowed us to marry, since not all can receive what is better, that is, complete purity (Matthew 19:11); and he has charged those who marry to rear without fail what is born to them, and not to destroy the children given by providence. And this does not conflict with our refusal to obey the demons who have the earth as their domain; for, armed with the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:11), we stand as athletes of piety against the race of demons that plot against us.

God or mammon§56

56So even if, by his own argument, Celsus sends us one and all out of life, so that, as he thinks, such a race of ours may be wholly wiped out from the earth, we for our part will live among the works of the One who created us, according to the laws of God, in no way willing to be slaves to the laws of sin (Romans 7:25). And we will marry, if we wish, and receive the children given to us in our marriages. And if need be, we will share in the things of life, bearing the appointed evils as trials of the soul. For this is what the divine words usually call what befalls men; and in these the soul of man, tested like gold in the fire, is either exposed or shown to be admirable (1 Peter 1:6–7; Sirach 2:5).

And we are so prepared for what Celsus calls evils that we even say, “Test me, Lord, and try me; put my inmost parts and my heart to the fire” (Psalm 26:2). For no one “is crowned unless he competes according to the rules” (2 Timothy 2:5) here on earth, with “the body of humiliation” (Philippians 3:21).

Moreover, we do not render the honours thought to be due to those to whom, Celsus says, the things here have been entrusted. For we worship “the Lord” our “God” and serve “him alone” (Matthew 4:10), praying to become imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). When the devil said to him, “All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9), he answered, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10). That is why we do not render the honours thought fitting to those to whom, Celsus says, the things here have been entrusted: because “no one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24), and we cannot at once “serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24), whether that name belongs to one being or to many.

Further, if anyone dishonours the lawgiver “through transgression of the law” (Romans 2:23), it seems clear to us that, when two laws stand opposed to each other, the law of God and the law of mammon, it is better for us to dishonour mammon “through transgression of the law” of mammon, so that by keeping the law of God we may honour God, than to dishonour God “through transgression of the law” of God, so that by keeping the law of mammon we may honour mammon.

Thanks due to God, not to demons§57

57Celsus, then, thinks that men perform the duties that befit life, until they are released from their bonds, when they render the sacrifices, according to the customs of the many, to each of the gods recognized in each city. He has not understood what exact piety takes to be truly fitting. We, however, say that the one who performs what befits life is the one who remembers who the Creator is and what is pleasing to him, and who does all things in order to please God.

And again, Celsus does not want us to be ungrateful toward the demons here, since he thinks we owe them thank-offerings. But we, setting out clearly the teaching on thanksgiving, say that we do nothing ungrateful toward beings who do us no good but, on the contrary, stand against us, when we do not sacrifice to them, nor even serve them. What we guard against is being ungrateful toward God, whose benefits fill us. We are his creatures, cared for by him in whatever state his judgment has placed us, and beyond this life we look for the hopes that come from him. And we have a token of our thanksgiving to God: the bread called “Eucharist”, that is, “Thanksgiving”.

Nor, as we said above as well, do demons have the management of the things created for our needs. Therefore we do nothing unjust when we partake of created things and do not sacrifice to those to whom they do not belong. And if we perceive that it is not some demons but angels who are set over the fruits of the earth and the birth of living creatures, we speak well of them and call them blessed, since God has entrusted them with what is useful to our race. Yet we do not give them the honour owed to God; for neither does God wish this, nor do those entrusted with such tasks themselves. Indeed, they welcome us more when we refrain from sacrificing to them than if we sacrificed; for they have no need of the fumes that rise from the earth.

Celsus and the thirty-six Egyptian demons§58

58After this Celsus says words to this effect: “That in these matters, down to the very least, there is someone to whom authority has been given, one may learn from what the Egyptians say. They say that thirty-six demons, or certain ethereal gods, have divided the human body among them, apportioned into that many parts (some say far more), and each has been charged to tend a different part of it. They also know the names of the demons in their native tongue, such as Chnoumen, Chnachoumen, Knat, Sikat, Biou, Erou, Erebiou, Ramanor and Reianoor, and all the others they name in their own language; and by calling on them they heal the ailments of the parts. What then prevents anyone who so wishes from paying his respects to these and to the others, and so being healthy rather than sick, fortunate rather than unfortunate, and set free, as far as possible, from tortures and punishments?”

With these words Celsus tries to drag our soul down to the demons, as though they had received our bodies as their allotted portion, and he declares that each one presides over a part of our body. He wants us to trust the demons he speaks of and to serve them, so that we may be healthy rather than sick, fortunate rather than unfortunate, and be released from tortures to the full extent that it can be done. Yet so low is his opinion of the whole and undivided honour paid to the God of all that he does not believe that God alone, worshipped and honoured with a loud voice, is enough to give the one who honours Him, from the very act of revering Him, a power that holds back the plots of the demons against the devout. For he has not seen how the invocation of the name of Jesus by those who truly believe has healed not a few people from diseases, from possession by demons, and from other afflictions.

The name of Jesus against the Egyptian list§59

59Probably the one who embraces Celsus’s views will laugh when we say that “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue” is brought “to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). But once he has laughed, he will receive more effective proofs that this is so than any he has about the names he reports, Chnoumen, Chnachoumen, Knat, Sikat and the rest of the Egyptian list, on the claim that, when invoked, they heal the ailments of the parts.

And see how, while turning us away from believing in the God of all through Jesus Christ, he calls us, for the healing of our body, to faith in thirty-six barbarian demons, whom only the Egyptian magicians invoke, promising us, I do not know how, better things. So, according to Celsus, it is time for us to practise trickery and sorcery rather than to be Christians, and to believe in some countless number of demons rather than in the God over all, who is evident at once, living and plain to see, believing in Him through the One who with great power sowed the pure word of godliness over the whole inhabited world of men, and, I shall not lie if I add it, over the world of the other rational beings too, who also need correction, healing and a change away from wickedness.

Celsus’s own warning against demon worship§60

60Celsus, at any rate, suspected that those who have learned such things slide into magic, and he somehow sensed that harm would come to those who heard them. So he says: “One must, however, guard against this: that no one, by keeping company with these beings, should be wholly absorbed in their worship, and, coming to love the body and turning away from higher things, be held fast by forgetfulness. For perhaps we ought not to disbelieve wise men, who say that most of the earthly demons are fused with the world of becoming, nailed to blood and the smoke of sacrifice and to songs, and bound to other such things, and could do nothing better than heal a body and foretell the coming fortune of a man and of a city; and all that concerns mortal affairs, this they know and can do.”

Since the danger of slipping in this matter is so great, as even the enemy bears witness to the truth of God, how much better it is, free from any fear of being absorbed into such demons, or of loving the body, turning away from higher things and being held fast by forgetfulness of higher things, to entrust oneself to the God over all through Jesus Christ, who gave us such teaching, and to ask from Him all help and the protection of holy angels and of the righteous, so that they may rescue us from the earthly demons. These are fused with the world of becoming, nailed to blood and the smoke of sacrifice, drawn by outlandish songs and bound to other such things, and, as even Celsus admits, can do nothing better than heal the body.

But I would say that it is not even clear that these demons, however they are served, can heal bodies. Rather, if a person wishes to live in a simpler and more ordinary way, he should see to the healing of the body by medical means; but if he wishes to live better than the many, by piety toward the God over all and by prayers to Him.

Which worshipper God accepts§61

61Consider for yourself too: which character will the God over all more readily accept, He who has power as no one else has, for all things and for doing good to men, whether in soul or in body or in outward things? Will it be the one devoted to Him in all things, or the one who busies himself with the names of demons, their powers and workings, with spells and herbs suited to demons, with stones and the carvings on them, made to match the forms of demons that have been handed down, whether symbolic or of some other kind?

It is clear to anyone who can follow the argument even a little that the character free of pretence and free of curious arts, and for that very reason devoted to the God over all, will be acceptable to God and to all who are His own. But the character that, for the sake of bodily health, love of the body and good fortune in things that are neither good nor bad, busies itself with the names of demons and seeks how it may charm the demons with certain spells, God will leave, as wicked, impious and more demonic than human, to the demons chosen by the man who addresses such words to them, to be torn apart by the thoughts each of them suggests, or by other evils as well.

For it is likely that, being base, and, as Celsus admitted, nailed to blood and the smoke of sacrifice and to songs and other such things, they do not keep faith, or their pledges, so to speak, even toward those who gratify them with these things. For when others call on them against those who have served them, and buy their service with more blood and smoke of sacrifice and the worship they crave, they would plot against the man who served them yesterday and gave them a share of the feast they love.

Celsus admits what Christians say of oracles§62

62Earlier Celsus said a great deal, going so far as to speak of oracles and to send us off to their oracular shrines as though to gods. Now he has done better, admitting that those who foretell the coming fortune of a man and of a city, and all who are concerned with mortal affairs, are earthly demons, fused with the world of becoming, nailed to blood and the smoke of sacrifice and to songs, and bound to other such things, and able to do nothing better than these.

And it is likely that, when we were standing against Celsus as he treated the oracles and the worship given to the supposed gods as divine, someone took us for impious, because we said that these were the works of demons who drag the souls of men down to the affairs of the world of becoming. But now let the one who formed that opinion of us be persuaded that what Christians proclaim is well said, seeing that even the man who writes against Christians has now, at the end, put this in writing, as though overcome by the Spirit of truth (John 14:17).

So even if Celsus says: “We must pay these their due rites, so far as it is to our advantage, for reason does not justify doing this in every respect,” we must not pay due rites to demons that are fused with the smoke of sacrifice and with blood, nor must we, for our part, defile the divine by dragging it down to wicked demons. If Celsus had examined the idea of advantage with care and had seen that what is advantage in the proper sense is virtue and action in keeping with virtue, he would not have set down “so far as it is to our advantage” in the case of beings like these, who are, as he himself admitted, demons.

We therefore choose, if health and good fortune in the affairs of life are to come to us through the worship of such demons, rather to be sick and to be unfortunate in the affairs of life, with a conscience that is purely reverent toward the God of all, than to be healthy in body and to fare more fortunately in the affairs of life while being cut off and falling away from God and being sick in soul to the last degree and wretched. We must draw near to Him who needs nothing at all except the salvation of men and of every rational being, rather than to those who crave the smoke of sacrifice and blood.

Celsus recants and urges courting rulers§63

63Celsus, I think, after all the words he spoke about demons who need the smoke of sacrifice and blood, as though turning to wickedness, sings a recantation and says that “we should rather believe that the demons need nothing and lack nothing, but take pleasure in those who act piously toward them.” If he thought this was true, he ought not to have set down those earlier words; he should have struck them out.

But human nature is not wholly abandoned by God and by the Truth, His only-begotten. That is why Celsus too spoke the truth in what he said about the smoke of sacrifice and the blood that demons crave; but again, by his own wickedness, he slid down into falsehood, and he likens the demons to men who do what is just in a perfectly just way, even if no one thanks them, and who do good to those who repay them with gratitude.

He seems to me to be confused on this subject: at one moment his ruling mind is troubled by the demons, and at another, coming back to his senses from the folly he suffers under them, he sees a little of the truth. For again he adds: “But God must not be forsaken anywhere or in any way, neither by day nor by night, neither in public nor in private, in every word and in every deed continually; indeed, both with these and apart from them, let the soul be always directed toward God.” I take “with these” to mean with public life, with every deed and with every word.

Then again, as though wrestling in his reasoning against the frenzies that come from the demons and being mostly overcome, he goes on to say: “If this is so, what is so dreadful in winning the favour of the rulers here, both the others and the princes and kings among men, since not even these have been granted their place in this world without the strength of demons?” Earlier, as far as it lay with him, he was dragging our soul down to the demons; now he wants us to win the favour of the princes and kings among men as well. Since life and the histories are full of examples of these men, I have not thought it necessary to set them out now.

Seek the favour of the one God§64

64So it is the one God over all whose favour we must seek, and we must pray to Him to be gracious; His favour is won by piety and by every virtue. But if Celsus wants us to win the favour of some others too, after the God over all, let him consider this: just as the movement of its shadow follows a body in motion, in the same way, winning the favour of the God over all brings with it the goodwill of all His friends, angels and souls and spirits.

For they perceive who are worthy of favour from God, and not only do they themselves become well disposed to the worthy, but they also work together with those who wish to serve the God over all; they seek His favour for them, they pray with them and join in their requests. So we dare to say that when men who by deliberate choice set the better things before them pray to God, countless holy powers pray with them unbidden. They stand by our mortal race and, if I may put it so, share its struggle and anguish, because they see the demons waging war and contending against salvation, most of all the salvation of those who dedicate themselves to God and take no thought of the hatred of the demons, if the demons grow savage against the man who flees their worship with the smoke of sacrifice and blood, and who by every manner of word and deed hastens to be made kin to the God over all and united with Him through Jesus, who overthrew countless demons when He went about “healing” and turning back “those who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38).

Obedience to rulers, but no oath by the emperor’s fortune§65

65We, however, must scorn to win the favour of men and kings, not only if we would win it by murders, by debauchery and by the most savage deeds, but also if we would win it by impiety toward the God of the universe, or by any word spoken with servility and abjectness. Such words are foreign to brave and great-souled men, who wish to take up endurance, as the greatest of virtues, together with the other virtues. Yet where we do nothing contrary to the law and word of God, we are not mad, nor are we eager to rouse against ourselves the anger of a king or a ruler, which would bring us to outrages and tortures, or even to death. For we have also read: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been appointed by God; so whoever resists the authority resists what God has ordained” (Romans 13:1–2).

In our commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans we examined these words too, more fully and from various sides, as far as we were able. Here we have taken them more simply, according to the more common interpretation, to suit the matter in hand, since Celsus says: “Not even these men have been granted the things of this world without the power of demons.” And since the subject of the appointment of kings and rulers is a large one, and the passage raises much inquiry because of those who have ruled with cruelty and tyranny, or those who, once in power, have run aground on softness and luxury, we have for that reason put off examining the problem for the present.

We do not, however, swear by the fortune of the emperor, any more than by any other supposed god. For if, as some have put it, fortune is only a way of speaking, like “seeming” and “distance,” then we do not swear by what does not exist at all as though it were a god, or as though it had any real existence and could do anything, so that we may not apply the power of an oath where it ought not to be applied. Or if, as some have held when they say, “Those who swear by the fortune of the Roman emperor swear by his demon,” what is called the emperor’s fortune is a demon, then in that case we must rather die than swear by a wicked and faithless demon, which often sins along with the man to whom it was allotted, or even sins more than he does.

Hymns to the Sun and to Athena§66

66Then again Celsus, like those who at times recover from demonic possession and then fall back again, says something like this, as though he were sober: “If, however, someone should command one who happens to worship God either to act impiously or to say anything else shameful, he must in no way at all be obeyed; rather than this, one must endure every torture and submit to every kind of death, before one would even think, let alone say, anything unholy about God.” Then again, out of ignorance of our teaching, and besides that because he jumbles everything together, he says this: “But if someone commands you to praise the Sun or Athena, praise them with the utmost eagerness in a fine hymn; in this way you will seem all the more to worship the great God, if you hymn these too; for piety becomes more complete when it passes through all things.”

We answer, then, that we do not wait for someone to command us before we praise the sun, we who have learned to speak well not only of those who are subject to God’s ordering but even of our enemies (compare Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:28). So we praise the sun as a fine work of God, which keeps the laws of God and hears the words, “Praise the Lord, sun and moon” (Psalm 148:3), and which with all its power hymns the Father and Creator of the universe.

As for Athena, however, whom the accounts of the Greeks set beside the sun, they made her the subject of myth, saying, whether with hidden meanings or without them, that she was born fully armed from the head of Zeus; and that once, when Hephaestus pursued her in the wish to destroy her virginity, she escaped him, but that she loved the seed which fell to the earth from his lust and reared it, calling it Erichthonius, “whom once,” they say, “Athena, daughter of Zeus, reared, but the grain-giving earth bore” (Homer, Iliad 2.547–548). And we see that one who accepts Athena, the daughter of Zeus, must accept with her many myths and fictions, which one who flees from myths and seeks the truth would not accept.

We hymn only God and His Word§67

67Even if Athena is allegorised and said to be wisdom, let someone establish her real existence and her substance, showing that she subsists in the way this allegory says. And if Athena was once a woman of ancient times and has been honoured because those who wished her name to be sung among men as a goddess handed down mysteries and rites to their subjects, then all the more ought we not to hymn Athena and glorify her as a goddess, since it is not lawful for us even to worship the sun, great as it is, though we praise it.

Celsus, then, says that we seem the more to worship the great God if we hymn both the Sun and Athena; but we know the opposite. For we sing hymns only to the God over all and to His only-begotten, God the Word (compare John 1:1; John 1:18). And we hymn God and His Only-begotten, as do also “sun and moon” and “stars” (Psalm 148:3) and the whole heavenly host (compare Luke 2:13). For all these, being a divine choir, together with the righteous among men, hymn the God over all and His Only-begotten.

We said before that we must not swear by the king among men, or by what is called his fortune. So we need not defend ourselves again against this: “And even if someone commands you to take an oath by a king among men, not even this is anything terrible. For to him have been given the things on earth, and whatever you receive in this life, you receive from him.” But we say that it is by no means true that all things on earth have been given to him, nor do we receive from him whatever we receive in this life. For whatever we receive justly and rightly, we receive from God and His providence: cultivated crops, and bread that “strengthens the heart of man,” and the gentle vine, and wine that “gladdens the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). The fruit of the olive too we have from the providence of God, “to make the face shine with oil” (Psalm 104:15).

One king, appointed by God and not by the son of Cronus§68

68Next Celsus says that one must not disbelieve an ancient man who long ago declared: “One king, to whom the son of crooked-counselling Cronus gave it” (Homer, Iliad 2.205). And he adds: “For if you overthrow this teaching, the king will rightly punish you. For if all were to do the same as you, nothing would prevent him from being left alone and deserted, and the affairs of the earth from falling into the hands of the most lawless and savage barbarians, and nothing would keep the fame of your religion, or of the true wisdom, from vanishing from among men.”

Let there be, then, “one lord, one king” (Homer, Iliad 2.204–205); not one “to whom the son of crooked-counselling Cronus gave it,” but one to whom He gave it who “sets up kings and removes them” (Daniel 2:21) and at the right time raises up “the man who is useful” over the earth (Sirach 10:4). And it is not the son of Cronus who appoints kings, the son who drove from his rule the father who, as the myths of the Greeks say, was cast down into Tartarus; nor is it so even if someone allegorises what is said in those passages. Rather, God who governs all things knows what He is doing in the matter of the appointment of kings.

We do overthrow, then, the teaching “to whom the son of crooked-counselling Cronus gave it,” since we are persuaded that neither a god nor a father of a god wills anything crooked or twisted. But we do not overthrow the teaching about providence, and about the things that come about by it either as its primary purpose or as consequences that follow from certain other things. Nor would a king rightly punish us for saying that it was not the son of crooked-counselling Cronus who gave him his kingship, but He who “removes kings and sets them up” (Daniel 2:21).

Yes, let all do the same as I do, overthrowing the Homeric teaching while keeping the divine teaching about the king and observing the words, “Honour the king” (1 Peter 2:17). On such a supposition the king will not be left alone, nor will he be deserted, nor will the affairs of the earth fall to the most lawless and savage barbarians. For if, as Celsus says, all were to do the same as I do, clearly the barbarians too, when they come to the Word of God, will be most law-abiding and most gentle; and every religion will be abolished, and that of the Christians alone will prevail. And indeed it alone will one day prevail, since the Word is always winning more and more souls.

If the Romans prayed with one accord§69

69Then Celsus, not hearing himself as he says things that do not hang together in the words, “For if all were to do the same as you,” says: “Surely you will not say this: that if the Romans, persuaded by you, were to neglect their customary duties toward gods and men and call upon your Most High, or whoever you like, he will come down and fight for them, and they will need no other help. For before this too the same God, as you say, promised these things and far greater ones to those who gave heed to him; and you see how much he has helped both them and you. Of them, instead of their being masters of the whole earth, not so much as a clod of soil or a hearth is left; and of you, if any still wanders about in hiding, yet he is hunted down to be punished with death.”

But since he asks, by way of supposition, what would happen if the Romans, persuaded by the doctrine of the Christians, were to neglect their duties toward the customary gods and the former laws among men and worship the Most High, hear what we hold about this. We say that if “two” of us “agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by the Father” of the righteous, “who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19) — for God rejoices in the concord of rational beings and turns away from discord — what must we think if not only a very few, as now, were to agree, but the whole empire under the Romans? For they will pray to the Word who said long ago to the Hebrews when the Egyptians were pursuing them: “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall keep silent” (Exodus 14:14). And praying in complete concord they will be able to destroy far more enemies who pursue them than those whom the prayer of Moses and of those with him brought down, when he cried out to God (compare Exodus 14:15).

If the things that God promised to those who keep the law have not come about, they have failed to come about not because God lies, but because the promises were made on conditions, the conditions of keeping the law and living according to the law. And if neither clod nor hearth is left to the Jews, who received the promises on conditions, the blame must be laid on all their transgression of the law, and above all on their transgression against Jesus.

Christians are the salt that preserves the world§70

70But on Celsus’s supposition, if all the Romans were persuaded, by praying they will overcome their enemies, or they will not even make war at all, guarded by the divine power which promised to save five whole cities for the sake of fifty righteous men (compare Genesis 18:24–26). For the men of God are salt that preserves the order of the world on earth, and the things on earth hold together as long as the salt does not go bad. For “if the salt has lost its taste,” it “is no longer fit either for the soil or for the dunghill,” but “is thrown out” and will be trampled “by men” (Matthew 5:13; Luke 14:34–35). “He who has ears, let him hear” (Luke 14:35) how these things are said.

We too, when God allows the tempter and gives him authority to persecute us, are persecuted; but when God does not wish us to suffer this, even in a world that hates us (compare John 15:18) we live in peace, against all expectation, and take courage from Him who said: “Take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And truly He has overcome “the world”; therefore the world has power only so far as He who overcame it wills, since He received from the Father the power to overcome “the world.” And we take courage from His victory.

But if He wishes us once more to contend and struggle for piety, let the adversaries come, and we will say to them: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, Christ Jesus our Lord” (Philippians 4:13; 1 Timothy 1:12). For when two sparrows are sold “for a penny,” as Scripture names the price, “not one falls into a snare without the Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:29). And divine providence has embraced all things so fully that not even the hairs “of our head” have escaped being numbered by Him (Matthew 10:30).

Celsus invents a claim no Christian made§71

71Then again, as is his habit, Celsus muddles things together in what follows, saying what none of us has ever written. For he says something like this: “Nor is it tolerable when you say that, if those who now reign over us are persuaded by you and are taken captive, you will persuade those who reign after them, then others, if they too are taken, and others after others, until, when all who are persuaded by you are being taken, some one government, coming to its senses and foreseeing what is happening, will wipe you all out, race and all, before it is itself destroyed.”

There is no call to speak about this, for none of us says about those who now reign that, if they are persuaded and are taken, we will in turn persuade those after them, and when those are taken we will again persuade the next. And where did he get the idea he has thrown out here, that, as later rulers are always persuaded by us in succession and are taken because they do not defend themselves against the enemy, some one government, coming to its senses and foreseeing what is happening, will wipe us out, race and all? It seems rather that here, stringing one piece of nonsense onto another, he has also blurted this out from his own head.

Can all rational beings agree under one law?§72

72After this he utters a kind of wish: “If only it were possible for the Greeks and barbarians who inhabit Asia, Europe and Libya, to their farthest bounds, to come to agreement under one law!” Then, judging this impossible, he adds that “whoever thinks this knows nothing.”

If something must be said on this too, a few things will be said on the subject, though it needs much examination and proof, to show that what is said about every rational being coming to agree under one law is not only possible but true. The Stoics say that when the element which is stronger than the others has prevailed, as far as it can, the conflagration will come, with all things changing into fire. But we say that the Word will one day gain mastery over the whole of rational nature and transform every soul into his own perfection, when each one, using nothing but his own freedom, chooses what he wills and comes to be in what he has chosen.

And we say that it is not reasonable to think that, as with diseases and wounds in the body some of the things that happen prove stronger than the whole art of medicine, so with souls some effect of wickedness cannot be healed by the Word, who is over all and is God. For the Word is mightier than all the evils in the soul, and so is the healing that is in him, and he applies it to each one according to the will of God; and the end of things is that wickedness be destroyed. Whether it will be destroyed so that it can never again, anywhere or in any way, be permitted, or not, it is not the task of the present discussion to teach.

Now the prophecies say many things, in veiled terms, about the complete destruction of evils and the setting right of every soul; for the present it is enough to set out the passage from Zephaniah, which runs thus: “Make ready, rise early: all their gleaning is ruined. Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my rising up for a testimony; for my judgment is upon the gatherings of the nations, to receive kings, to pour out upon them all the wrath of my anger. For in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For then I will turn for the peoples a tongue into its own generation, so that all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke. From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they shall offer sacrifices to me. On that day you shall not be put to shame for all your practices by which you acted impiously against me; for then I will take away from you the contemptible things of your insolence, and you shall no longer go on boasting upon my holy mountain. And I will leave in you a people meek and lowly, and the remnant of Israel shall reverence the name of the Lord; and they shall do no wrong and speak no vain things, and no deceitful tongue shall be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and there shall be no one to make them afraid” (Zephaniah 3:7–13).

Let anyone who is able, having studied all of this, set out the clear meaning of the prophecy; and let him examine above all what it means that, when all the earth is being consumed, a tongue is turned “for the peoples into its own generation” (Zephaniah 3:9), in a way that answers to the state of things before the confusion (Genesis 11:7–9). And let him consider what it means for “all to call upon the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke” (Zephaniah 3:9), so that “the contemptible things of insolence” are taken away (Zephaniah 3:11), and there is no longer “wrong,” nor vain words, nor a deceitful tongue (Zephaniah 3:13).

I have thought it right to set these things out briefly and without a precise exposition, because of Celsus’s statement, since he thinks it impossible for the Greeks and barbarians who live in Asia, Europe and Libya to come to agreement. And perhaps such a thing truly is impossible for those who are still in bodies, but not impossible for those who have been set free from them.

Christians help the emperor by prayer§73

73Next Celsus urges us to help the emperor with all our strength, to labour with him in what is just, to fight for him, to serve in his army if he presses us, and to share command with him.

To this too we must say that we do help emperors when there is need, with a help that is, so to speak, divine, and taking up “the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:13). And we do this in obedience to the apostle’s voice, which says: “I urge you, then, first to make petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1–2). And the more pious a person is, the more effective he is in helping those who reign: more effective than the soldiers who go out to the battle lines and kill as many of the enemy as they can.

Then we might also say this to those who are strangers to the faith and who demand that we serve as soldiers for the common good and kill men: even among you, the priests of certain images and the temple-keepers of those you consider gods keep their right hands undefiled for the sake of the sacrifices, so that they may offer the customary sacrifices to those you call gods with hands free of blood and clean of killing; and surely, when war comes, you do not enlist the priests too. If, then, this is reasonably done, how much more reasonably, while others go to war, do these also wage their war as priests and servants of God, keeping their right hands clean but striving through prayers to God for those who fight in a just cause and for him who reigns justly, so that everything opposed and hostile to those who act justly may be overthrown?

And we, by our prayers overthrowing all the demons who stir up wars, break oaths and disturb peace, help those who reign more than those who seem to be soldiers do. We share the labours of public affairs, we who offer up prayers with righteousness, together with disciplines and meditations that teach us to despise pleasures and not to be led by them. We fight for the emperor even more; and we do not serve in his army, even if he presses us, but we wage war on his behalf, raising an army of our own, an army of piety, through our intercessions to the Deity.

How Christians lead for their country§74

74And if Celsus wants us to lead armies for our country as well, let him know that we do this too, and not so as to be seen by men or to win empty glory from them by doing it (Matthew 6:1). For in our secret place, in the very ruling part of the soul, prayers are sent up, as from priests, for those in our country (Matthew 6:6).

Christians do more good to their countries than the rest of mankind. They educate the citizens and teach them to be devout toward God, the guardian of the city, and they take up into a divine and heavenly city those who have lived well in the least of cities. To them it might be said: in a very small city “you were faithful” (Luke 19:17); come also to the great one, where “God has taken his stand in the assembly of gods, and in their midst he judges gods” (Psalm 82:1), and he numbers you too among them, if you no longer die like a man nor fall “like one of the rulers” (Psalm 82:7).

Why Christians govern churches rather than cities§75

75Celsus also urges us to take office in our country, if this too must be done for the sake of preserving the laws and piety. But we know that in each city there is another organised country, founded by the Word of God, and we call those who are able to govern, sound in word and in life, to govern churches. We do not accept those who love to rule, but we press those who, out of great modesty, do not wish to take on hastily the common care of the church of God. And those who rule well among us are men who were pressed into it, compelled by the great King, whom we are persuaded is the Son of God, God the Word.

And if those who rule well in the church rule over the country that is according to God (I mean the Church), whether asked or pressed, they rule according to what God has commanded, and in doing so they defile none of the laws that have been laid down. And it is not to escape the more common public duties of life that Christians avoid such offices, but to keep themselves for a more divine and more necessary service, that of the church of God, for the salvation of men. In this service they lead both of necessity and with justice, and they take thought for all: for those within, that they may live better day by day; and for those who seem to be outside, that they may come to be within the holy words and works of godliness, and so, worshipping God truly and teaching many as far as they can, may be blended with the Word of God and the divine law, and thus be united to the God over all through the Son of God, who is Word, Wisdom, Truth and Righteousness, and who unites to him everyone who has been moved to live in all things according to God.

Closing words to Ambrose§76

76With this, holy Ambrose, you have the completion of what you charged us to do, carried out with the power that we have and that was given to us. In eight books we have set down everything that we thought it fitting to dictate in answer to Celsus’s book entitled The True Doctrine. It is for the one who reads his treatise, and what we dictated against it, to judge which of the two breathes more of the true God, of the way of piety toward Him, and of the truth that reaches to men, the truth of sound doctrines that urge them on to the best life.

Know, however, that Celsus announces that he will write another treatise after this one, in which he promised to teach how those who wish to follow him, and are able to, ought to live. If, then, he did not write the second book, though he promised it, it would be well for us to be content with the eight books dictated in answer to his treatise. But if he began that one too and completed it, search for the work and send it, so that, dictating in answer to it also whatever the Father of truth may give us, we may overturn the false belief it contains, and, if something true is said anywhere, may bear witness to it without contention as something well said.