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| Chapter XXVI
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Chapter
XXVI.
But let us see the manner in which this Celsus,
who professes to know everything, brings a false accusation against the
Jews, when he alleges that “they worship angels, and are addicted
to sorcery, in which Moses was their instructor.” Now, in
what part of the writings of Moses he found the lawgiver laying down
the worship of angels, let him tell, who professes to know all about
Christianity and Judaism; and let him show also how sorcery can exist
among those who have accepted the Mosaic law, and read the injunction,
“Neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by
them.”3117
Moreover, he
promises to show afterwards “how it was through ignorance that
the Jews were deceived and led into error.” Now, if he had
discovered that the ignorance of the Jews regarding Christ was the
effect of their not having heard the prophecies about Him, he would
show with truth how the Jews fell into error. But without any
wish whatever that this should appear, he views as Jewish errors what
are no errors at all. And Celsus having promised to make us
acquainted, in a subsequent part of his work, with the doctrines of
Judaism, proceeds in the first place to speak of our Saviour as having
been the leader of our generation, in so far as we are
Christians,3118
| 3118 ῾Ως
γενομένου
ἡγεμόνος τῇ
καθὸ
Χριστιανοί
ἐσμεν
γενέσει
ἡμῶν. | and says that
“a few years ago he began to teach this doctrine, being regarded
by Christians as the Son of God.” Now, with respect to this
point—His prior existence a few years ago—we have to remark
as follows. Could it have come to pass without divine assistance,
that Jesus, desiring during these years to spread abroad His words and
teaching, should have been so successful, that everywhere throughout
the world, not a few persons, Greeks as well as Barbarians, learned as
well as ignorant, adopted His doctrine, so that they struggled, even to
death in its defence, rather than deny it, which no one is ever related
to have done for any other system? I indeed, from no wish to
flatter3119
Christianity, but
from a desire thoroughly to examine the facts, would say that even
those who are engaged in the healing of numbers of sick persons, do not
attain their object—the cure of the body—without divine
help; and if one were to succeed in delivering souls from a flood of
wickedness, and excesses, and acts of injustice, and from a contempt of
God, and were to show, as evidence of such a result, one hundred
persons improved in their natures (let us suppose the number to be so
large), no one would reasonably say that it was without divine
assistance that he had implanted in those hundred individuals a
doctrine capable of removing so many evils. And if any one, on a
candid consideration of these things, shall admit that no improvement
ever takes place among men without divine help, how much more
confidently shall he make the same assertion regarding Jesus, when he
compares the former lives of many converts to His doctrine with their
after conduct, and reflects in what acts of licentiousness and
injustice and covetousness they formerly indulged, until, as Celsus,
and they who think with him, allege, “they were deceived,”
and accepted a doctrine which, as these individuals assert, is
destructive of the life of men; but who, from the time that they
adopted it, have become in some way meeker, and more religious, and
more consistent, so that certain among them, from a desire of exceeding
chastity, and a wish to worship God with greater purity, abstain even
from the permitted indulgences of (lawful) love.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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