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| Chapter LXXVI
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Chapter
LXXVI.
Celsus, in adopting the character of a Jew, could
not discover any objections to be urged against the Gospel which might
not be retorted on him as liable to be brought also against the law and
the prophets. For he censures Jesus in such words as the
following: “He makes use of threats, and reviles men on
light grounds, when he says, ‘Woe unto you,’ and ‘I
tell you beforehand.’ For by such expressions he manifestly
acknowledges his inability to persuade; and this would not be the case
with a God, or even a prudent man.” Observe, now, whether
these charges do not manifestly recoil upon the Jew. For in the
writings of the law and the prophets God makes use of threats and
revilings, when He employs language of not less severity than that
found in the Gospel, such as the following expressions of Isaiah:
“Woe unto them that join house to house, and lay field to
field;”3413
and, “Woe
unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong
drink;”3414
and, “Woe
unto them that draw their sins after them as with a long
rope;”3415
and, “Woe
unto them that call evil good, and good evil;”3416
and, “Woe unto those of you who are
mighty to drink wine;”3417
and innumerable
other passages of the same kind. And does not the following
resemble the threats of which he speaks: “Ah sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are
corrupters?”3418
and so on, to which
he subjoins such threats as are equal in severity to those which, he
says, Jesus made use of. For is it not a threatening, and a great
one, which declares, “Your country is desolate, your cities are
burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your
presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by
strangers?”3419
And are there
not revilings in Ezekiel directed against the people, when the Lord
says to the prophet, “Thou dwellest in the midst of
scorpions?”3420
Were you
serious, then, Celsus, in representing the Jew as saying of Jesus, that
“he makes use of threats and revilings on slight grounds, when he
employs the expressions, ‘Woe unto you,’ and ‘I tell
you beforehand?’” Do you not see that the charges
which this Jew of yours brings against Jesus might be brought by him
against God? For the God who speaks in the prophetic writings is
manifestly liable to the same accusations, as Celsus regards them, of
inability to persuade. I might, moreover, say to this Jew, who
thinks that he makes a good charge against Jesus by such statements,
that if he undertakes, in support of the scriptural account, to defend
the numerous curses recorded in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
we should make as good, or better, a defence of the revilings and
threatenings which are regarded as having been spoken by Jesus.
And as respects the law of Moses itself, we are in a position to make a
better defence of it than the Jew is, because we have been taught by
Jesus to have a more intelligent apprehension of the writings of the
law. Nay, if the Jew perceive the meaning of the prophetic
Scriptures, he will be able to show that it is for no light reason that
God employs threatenings and revilings, when He says, “Woe unto
you,” and “I tell you beforehand.” And how
should God employ such expressions for the conversion of men, which
Celsus thinks that even a
prudent man would not have recourse to? But Christians, who know
only one God—the same who spoke in the prophets and in the Lord
(Jesus)—can prove the reasonableness of those threatenings and
revilings, as Celsus considers and entitles them. And here a few
remarks shall be addressed to this Celsus, who professes both to be a
philosopher, and to be acquainted with all our system. How is it,
friend, when Hermes, in Homer, says to Odysseus,
“Why, now, wretched man, do you come
wandering alone over the mountain-tops?”3421
that you are satisfied with the answer, which
explains that the Homeric Hermes addresses such language to Odysseus to
remind him of his duty,3422
because it is
characteristic of the Sirens to flatter and to say pleasing things,
around whom
“Is a huge heap of bones,”3423
| 3423 Cf.
Odyss., xii. 45. |
and who say,
“Come hither, much lauded Odysseus, great
glory of the Greeks;”3424
whereas, if our prophets and Jesus Himself, in order to turn
their hearers from evil, make use of such expressions as “Woe
unto you,” and what you regard as revilings, there is no
condescension in such language to the circumstances of the hearers, nor
any application of such words to them as healing3425
medicine? Unless, indeed, you would
have God, or one who partakes of the divine nature, when conversing
with men, to have regard to His own nature alone, and to what is worthy
of Himself, but to have no regard to what is fitting to be brought
before men who are under the dispensation and leading of His word, and
with each one of whom He is to converse agreeably to his individual
character. And is it not a ridiculous assertion regarding Jesus,
to say that He was unable to persuade men, when you compare the state
of matters not only among the Jews, who have many such instances
recorded in the prophecies, but also among the Greeks, among whom all
of those who have attained great reputation for their wisdom have been
unable to persuade those who conspired against them, or to induce their
judges or accusers to cease from evil, and to endeavour to attain to
virtue by the way of philosophy?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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