Against Celsus, Preface
Silence before false witnesses§1
1When false witness was borne against our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, he “kept silent” (Matthew 26:63); when he was accused, he “answered nothing” (Matthew 27:12). He was convinced that his whole life and his deeds among the Jews were stronger than a voice refuting the false witness, or words of defence against the charges. But you, Ambrose, lover of God, wished, I do not know why, that we should make a defence against Celsus: against the false witness he bore against Christians in his writings, and against the charge he brought in a book against the faith of the churches. It is as if there were no clear refutation in the facts themselves, and no word stronger than all writings, which both makes false witness vanish and does not allow the charges even enough plausibility to have any force.
To show that Jesus “kept silent” when false witness was borne against him, it is enough for the present to quote Matthew, since Mark wrote what amounts to the same (Mark 14:55–61). Matthew’s words run as follows: “The high priest and the council sought false witness against Jesus, so that they might put him to death; and they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, ‘This man said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.”’ And the high priest stood up and said to him, ‘Do you answer nothing to what these men testify against you?’ But Jesus kept silent” (Matthew 26:59–63).
And that he did not answer when he was accused is written as follows: “Now Jesus stood before the governor; and he questioned him, saying, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You say so.’ And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?’ And he did not answer him a single word, so that the governor was greatly amazed” (Matthew 27:11–14).
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His disciples’ lives are his defence§2
2Indeed, to anyone of even moderate understanding, it was a thing to wonder at. Here was a man accused and falsely witnessed against. He could have made a defence and shown that he was guilty of no charge; he could have recounted the praises of his own life, and of his mighty works and how they had come from God, so as to give the judge a way to pronounce more favourably about him. Yet he did not do so, but despised his accusers and, with greatness of soul, disregarded them.
That the judge would have released Jesus without hesitation, had he made a defence, is clear from what is recorded about him. There the judge said, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:17, 21); and Scripture adds, saying, “For he knew that they had handed him over out of envy” (Matthew 27:18).
Jesus, then, is always falsely witnessed against, and so long as there is wickedness among men, there is no time when he is not accused. And even now he keeps silent in the face of these things and does not answer with his voice. Instead he makes his defence in the life of his true disciples. That life cries aloud what is excellent and is stronger than all false witness; and by it he refutes and overthrows the false witness and the charges.
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No argument can part us from God’s love§3
3I venture, then, to say that the defence you ask us to make weakens the defence that lies in the facts themselves, and the power of Jesus, which is plain to all who are not without perception. Still, so that we may not seem to shrink from the task you have laid on us, we have tried, as far as our present strength allows, to dictate in reply to each thing Celsus wrote whatever seemed to us to overturn his arguments, which can shake no believer. And may no one be found whose love of God “in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39) is of such a kind that his resolve could be shaken by the words of Celsus or of anyone like him.
Paul lists a vast number of things that commonly separate people “from the love of Christ” (Romans 8:35) and from “the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39), and the love within him was stronger than all of them; yet among the things that separate he did not set argument. For notice that he first says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being put to death all the day long; we were counted as sheep for the slaughter’ (Psalm 44:22). But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35–37).
Second, setting out another order of things that by nature tend to separate those who have no ballast in godliness, he says: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
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Why this reply is written§4
4And truly it is fitting for us to take pride in affliction that does not separate us, or in the things listed after it; but not for Paul and the apostles, or for anyone who has become like them. For one who says, “In all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37), is far above such things; and that is greater than conquering. And if apostles too must take pride in not being separated “from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39), they would take pride that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities,” nor any of the things that follow, is able “to separate” them “from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
So I take no joy in a believer in Christ whose faith could be shaken by Celsus, a man who no longer lives even the common life among men but is already long dead, or by any plausible argument. And I do not know in what rank one ought to count someone who needs arguments set down in books against Celsus’s charges against Christians, to bring him back from wavering in his faith to standing firm in it.
Yet among the multitude of those who are thought to believe, some might be found of such a kind as to be shaken and overturned by Celsus’s writings, but healed by a defence against them, if what is said has a character that demolishes Celsus’s claims and sets forth the truth. For this reason we have decided to obey your command and to dictate a reply to the treatise you sent us. I do not think that anyone who has made even a little progress in philosophy would grant that this treatise is a “True Doctrine,” as Celsus entitled it.
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Not even empty deceit§5
5Paul, then, saw that Greek philosophy holds persuasive arguments, not easy for most people to dismiss, which present falsehood as truth. Of these he says: “See to it that no one carries you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). And seeing that a certain greatness shows itself in the words of the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:20), he said that the words of the philosophers were “according to the elements of the world.” But no one with any sense would say that Celsus’s writings too were written “according to the elements of the world.”
Those words of the philosophers, since they hold something deceptive, he also called “empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8), perhaps to distinguish it from a deceit that is not empty. Jeremiah perceived this other deceit and dared to say to God: “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; you were stronger, and you prevailed” (Jeremiah 20:7). But Celsus’s writings seem to me to hold no deceit at all, and therefore not even empty deceit, such as is found in the writings of those who founded schools in philosophy and who gained no ordinary understanding in those matters.
Just as no one would call any chance error in geometrical theorems a fallacious proof, or write it up as an exercise for training in such matters, so whatever is to be called, like those words of the philosophers, “empty deceit” and “the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world” (Colossians 2:8), must come close to the thoughts of those who founded schools in philosophy.
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A word on this preface and its readers§6
6We decided to place this preface before the beginning after we had dictated everything up to the point where Celsus introduces his Jew addressing Jesus. We did so in order that whoever is going to read our dictated reply to Celsus may come upon it first, and may see that this book has not been written for believers at all, but either for those who have had no taste of faith in Christ, or for those whom the apostle called weak “in the faith.” His words are these: “Welcome the one who is weak in the faith” (Romans 14:1).
And let the preface make this excuse: that we dictated the beginning of our reply to Celsus with one plan, and what follows the beginning with another. At first we meant to note down the main points and, briefly, our replies to them, and after that to give the argument its full body. But later the work itself suggested to us, as we wished to save time, that we should be content with what had been dictated in this way at the beginning, and in what followed should contend against the charges Celsus brings against us, as far as we could, in the manner of a written treatise. That is why we ask pardon for the beginning of what follows the preface.
And if even what we dictated next does not move you to good effect, then I ask the same pardon for that too, and I send you on, if you still wish to have answers to Celsus’s arguments in dictated form, to those who are wiser than we are, and able to overturn Celsus’s charges against us in words and in books. Better, however, is the one who, even if he has read Celsus’s treatise, has had no need at all of a defence against it, but has looked down on everything in his book as things that even an ordinary believer in Christ rightly despises, because of the Spirit within him.
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