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| Chapter LXV
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Chapter LXV.
And since Jesus, in teaching His disciples not to
be guilty of rashness, gave them the precept, “If they persecute
you in this city, flee ye into another; and if they persecute you in
the other, flee again into a third,”3199
to
which teaching He added the example of a consistent life, acting so as
not to expose Himself to danger rashly, or unseasonably, or without
good grounds; from this Celsus takes occasion to bring a malicious and
slanderous accusation,—the Jew whom he brings forward saying to
Jesus, “In company with your disciples you go and hide yourself
in different places.” Now similar to what has thus been
made the ground of a slanderous charge against Jesus and His disciples,
do we say was the conduct recorded of Aristotle. This
philosopher, seeing that a court was about to be summoned to try him,
on the ground of his being guilty of impiety on account of certain of
his philosophical tenets which the Athenians regarded as impious,
withdrew from Athens, and fixed his school in Chalcis, defending his
course of procedure to his friends by saying, “Let us
depart from Athens, that we may not
give the Athenians a handle for incurring guilt a second time, as
formerly in the case of Socrates, and so prevent them from committing a
second act of impiety against philosophy.” He further says,
“that Jesus went about with His disciples, and obtained His
livelihood in a disgraceful and importunate manner.” Let
him show wherein lay the disgraceful and importunate element in their
manner of subsistence. For it is related in the Gospels, that
there were certain women who had been healed of their diseases, among
whom also was Susanna, who from their own possessions afforded the
disciples the means of support. And who is there among
philosophers, that, when devoting himself to the service of his
acquaintances, is not in the habit of receiving from them what is
needful for his wants? Or is it only in them that such acts are
proper and becoming; but when the disciples of Jesus do the same, they
are accused by Celsus of obtaining their livelihood by disgraceful
importunity?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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