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| Chapter LXII
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Chapter
LXII.
And after such statements, showing his ignorance
even of the number of the apostles, he proceeds thus:
“Jesus having gathered around him ten or eleven persons of
notorious character, the very wickedest of tax-gatherers and sailors,
fled in company with them from place to place, and obtained his living
in a shameful and importunate manner.” Let us to the best
of our power see what truth there is in such a statement. It is
manifest to us all who possess the Gospel narratives, which Celsus does
not appear even to have read, that Jesus selected twelve apostles, and
that of these Matthew alone was a tax-gatherer; that when he calls them
indiscriminately sailors, he probably means James and John, because
they left their ship and their father Zebedee, and followed Jesus; for
Peter and his brother Andrew, who employed a net to gain their
necessary subsistence, must be classed not as sailors, but as the
Scripture describes them, as fishermen. The Lebes3185
also, who was a follower of Jesus, may have been a tax-gatherer;
but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to a
statement in one of the copies of Mark’s Gospel.3186
| 3186 Cf. Mark
iii. 18 with Matt. x. 3. | And we have not ascertained the
employments of the remaining disciples, by which they earned their
livelihood before becoming disciples of Jesus. I assert,
therefore, in answer to such statements as the above, that it is clear
to all who are able to institute an intelligent and candid examination
into the history of the apostles of Jesus, that it was by help of a
divine power that these men taught Christianity, and succeeded in
leading others to embrace the word of God. For it was not any
power of speaking, or any orderly arrangement of their message,
according to the arts of Grecian dialectics or rhetoric, which was in
them the effective cause of converting their hearers. Nay, I am
of opinion that if Jesus had selected some individuals who were wise
according to the apprehension of the multitude, and who were fitted
both to think and speak so as to please them, and had used such as the
ministers of His doctrine, He would most justly have been suspected of
employing artifices, like those philosophers who are the leaders of
certain sects, and consequently the promise respecting the divinity of
His doctrine would not have manifested itself; for had the doctrine and
the preaching consisted in the persuasive utterance and arrangement of
words, then faith also, like that of the philosophers of the world in
their opinions, would have been through the wisdom of men, and not
through the power of God. Now, who is there on seeing fishermen
and tax-gatherers, who had not acquired even the merest elements of
learning (as the Gospel relates of them, and in respect to which Celsus
believes that they speak the truth, inasmuch as it is their own
ignorance which they record), discoursing boldly not only among the
Jews of faith in Jesus, but also preaching Him with success among other
nations, would not inquire whence they derived this power of
persuasion, as theirs was certainly not the common method followed by
the multitude? And who would not say that the promise,
“Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men,”3187
had been accomplished by Jesus in the
history of His apostles by a sort of divine power? And to this
also, Paul, referring in terms of commendation, as we have stated a
little above, says: “And my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of
men, but in the power of God.”3188
For,
according to the predictions in the prophets, foretelling the preaching
of the Gospel, “the Lord gave the word in great power to them who
preached it, even the King of the powers of the
Beloved,”3189
in order that the
prophecy might be fulfilled which said, “His words shall run very
swiftly.”3190
And we see
that “the voice of the apostles of Jesus has gone forth into all
the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”3191
On this account are they who hear the
word powerfully proclaimed filled with power, which they manifest both
by their dispositions and their lives, and by struggling even to death
on behalf of the truth; while some are altogether empty, although they
profess to believe in God through Jesus, inasmuch as, not possessing
any divine power, they have the appearance only of being converted to
the word of God. And although I have previously mentioned a
Gospel declaration uttered by the Saviour, I shall nevertheless quote
it again, as appropriate to the present occasion, as it confirms both
the divine manifestation of our Saviour’s foreknowledge regarding
the preaching of His Gospel, and the power of His word, which without
the aid of teachers gains the mastery over those who yield their assent
to persuasion accompanied with divine power; and the words of Jesus
referred to are, “The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are
few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth
labourers into His harvest.”3192
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