Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter LI
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter LI.
Celsus, indeed, evinced a slight knowledge of
Scripture when he made Jesus say, that it is “a certain Satan who
contrives such devices;” although he begs the question3328
| 3328 συναρπάζει
τὸν λόγον. | when he asserts that “Jesus did not
deny that these works have in them nothing of divinity, but proceed
from wicked men,” for he makes things which differ in kind to be
the same. Now, as a wolf is not of the same species as a dog,
although it may appear to have some resemblance in the figure of its
body and in its voice, nor a common wood-pigeon3329
the same as a dove,3330
so there is no
resemblance between what is done by the power of God and what is the
effect of sorcery. And we might further say, in answer to the
calumnies of Celsus, Are those to be regarded as miracles which are
wrought through sorcery by wicked demons, but those not which are
performed by a nature that is holy and divine? and does human life
endure the worse, but never receive the better? Now it appears to
me that we must lay it down as a general principle, that as, wherever
anything that is evil would make itself to be of the same nature with
the good, there must by all means be something that is good opposed to
the evil; so also, in opposition to those things which are brought
about by sorcery, there must also of necessity be some things in human
life which are the result of divine power. And it follows from
the same, that we must either annihilate both, and assert that neither
exists, or, assuming the one, and particularly the evil, admit also the
reality of the good. Now, if one were to lay it down that works
are wrought by means of sorcery, but would not grant that there are
also works which are the product of divine power, he would seem to me
to resemble him who should admit the existence of sophisms and
plausible arguments, which have the appearance of establishing the
truth, although really undermining it, while denying that truth had
anywhere a home among men, or a dialectic which differed from
sophistry. But if we once admit that it is consistent with the
existence of magic and sorcery (which derive their power from evil
demons, who are spell-bound by elaborate incantations, and become
subject to sorcerers) that some works must be found among men which
proceed from a power that is divine, why shall we not test those who
profess to perform them by their lives and morals, and the consequences
of their miracles, viz., whether they tend to the injury of men or to
the reformation of conduct? What minister of evil demons, e.g.,
can do such things? and by means of what incantations and magic
arts? And who, on the other hand, is it that, having his soul and
his spirit, and I imagine also his body, in a pure and holy state,
receives a divine spirit, and performs such works in order to benefit
men, and to lead them to believe on the true God? But if we must once
investigate (without being carried away by the miracles themselves) who
it is that performs them by help of a good, and who by help of an evil
power, so that we may neither slander all without discrimination, nor
yet admire and accept all as divine, will it not be manifest, from what
occurred in the times of Moses and Jesus, when entire nations were
established in consequence of their miracles, that these men wrought by
means of divine power what they are recorded to have performed?
For wickedness and sorcery would not have led a whole nation to rise
not only above idols and images erected by men, but also above all
created things, and to ascend to the uncreated origin of the God of the
universe.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
