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Chapter
XII.
And the following appear to me to be childish
assertions, viz., that “no good general and leader of great
multitudes was ever betrayed; nor even a wicked captain of robbers and
commander of very wicked men, who seemed to be of any use to his
associates; but Jesus, having been betrayed by his subordinates,
neither governed like a good general, nor, after deceiving his
disciples, produced in the minds of the victims of his deceit that
feeling of good-will which, so to speak, would be manifested towards a
brigand chief.” Now one might find many accounts of
generals who were betrayed by their own soldiers, and of robber chiefs
who were captured through the instrumentality of those who did not keep
their bargains with them. But grant that no general or robber
chief was ever betrayed, what does that contribute to the establishment
of the fact as a charge against Jesus, that one of His disciples became
His betrayer? And since Celsus makes an ostentatious exhibition
of philosophy, I would ask of him, If, then, it was a charge against
Plato, that Aristotle, after being his pupil for twenty years, went
away and assailed his doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and
styled the ideas of Plato the merest trifling?3254 And if I were still in doubt, I would
continue thus: Was Plato no longer mighty in dialectics, nor able
to defend his views, after Aristotle had taken his departure; and, on
that account, are the opinions of Plato false? Or may it not be,
that while Plato is true, as the pupils of his philosophy would
maintain, Aristotle was guilty of wickedness and ingratitude towards
his teacher? Nay, Chrysippus also, in many places of his
writings, appears to assail Cleanthes, introducing novel opinions
opposed to his views, although the latter had been his teacher when he
was a young man, and began the study of philosophy. Aristotle,
indeed, is said to have been Plato’s pupil for twenty years, and
no inconsiderable period was spent by Chrysippus in the school of
Cleanthes; while Judas did not remain so much as three years with
Jesus.3255
3255 [See De
Princip., iv. i. 5, where Origen gives the length of our
Lord’s ministry as “only a year and a few
months.” S.] | But from the
narratives of the lives of philosophers we might take many instances
similar to those on which Celsus founds a charge against Jesus on
account of Judas. Even the Pythagoreans erected
cenotaphs3256
3256 Cf. Clem. Alex.,
Strom., v. c. ix. [See vol. ii. pp. 457, 458.
S.] | to those who, after
betaking themselves to philosophy, fell back again into their ignorant
mode of life; and yet neither was Pythagoras nor his followers, on that
account, weak in argument and demonstration.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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