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| Chapter III
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Chapter III.
Our present object, however, is to expose the
ignorance of Celsus, who makes this Jew of his address his
fellow-citizen and the Israelitish converts in the following
manner: “What induced you to abandon the law of your
fathers?” etc. Now, how should they have abandoned the law
of their fathers, who are in the habit of rebuking those who do not
listen to its commands, saying, “Tell me, ye who read the law, do
ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two
sons;” and so on, down to the place, “which things are an
allegory,”3217
etc.? And how
have they abandoned the law of their fathers, who are ever speaking of
the usages of their fathers in such words as these: “Or
does not the law say
these things also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou
shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Doth God care for oxen? or saith He it altogether for our sakes? for
for our sakes it was written,” and so on?3218
Now, how confused is the reasoning of
the Jew in regard to these matters (although he had it in his power to
speak with greater effect) when he says: “Certain among you
have abandoned the usages of our fathers under a pretence of
explanations and allegories; and some of you, although, as ye pretend,
interpreting them in a spiritual manner, nevertheless do observe the
customs of our fathers; and some of you, without any such
interpretation, are willing to accept Jesus as the subject of prophecy,
and to keep the law of Moses according to the customs of the fathers,
as having in the words the whole mind of the Spirit.” Now
how was Celsus able to see these things so clearly in this place, when
in the subsequent parts of his work he makes mention of certain godless
heresies altogether alien from the doctrine of Jesus, and even of
others which leave the Creator out of account altogether, and does not
appear to know that there are Israelites who are converts to
Christianity, and who have not abandoned the law of their
fathers? It was not his object to investigate everything here in
the spirit of truth, and to accept whatever he might find to be useful;
but he composed these statements in the spirit of an enemy, and with a
desire to overthrow everything as soon as he heard
it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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