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| Chapter XLIV
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Chapter
XLIV.
Celsus in the next place says, with indescribable
silliness: “If, after inventing defences which are absurd,
and by which ye were ridiculously deluded, ye imagine that you really
make a good defence, what prevents you from regarding those other
individuals who have been condemned, and have died a miserable death,
as greater and more divine messengers of heaven (than
Jesus)?” Now, that manifestly and clearly there is no
similarity between Jesus, who suffered what is described, and those who
have died a wretched death on account of their sorcery, or whatever
else be the charge against them, is patent to every one. For no
one can point to any acts of a sorcerer which turned away souls from
the practice of the many sins which prevail among men, and from the
flood of wickedness (in the world).3313
| 3313 τῆς κατὰ τὴν
κακίαν
χύσεως. | But
since this Jew of Celsus compares Him to robbers, and says that
“any similarly shameless fellow might be able to say regarding
even a robber and murderer whom punishment had overtaken, that such an
one was not a robber, but a god, because he predicted to his
fellow-robbers that he would suffer such punishment as he actually did
suffer,” it might, in the first place, be answered, that it is
not because He predicted that He would suffer such things that we
entertain those opinions regarding Jesus which lead us to have
confidence in Him, as one who has come down to us from God. And,
in the second place, we assert that this very comparison3314
has been somehow foretold in the Gospels;
since God was numbered with the transgressors by wicked men, who
desired rather a “murderer” (one who for sedition and
murder had been cast into prison) to be released unto them, and Jesus
to be crucified, and who crucified Him between two robbers.
Jesus, indeed, is ever crucified with robbers among His genuine
disciples and witnesses to the truth, and suffers the same condemnation
which they do among men. And we say, that if those persons have
any resemblance to robbers, who on account of their piety towards God
suffer all kinds of injury and death, that they may keep it pure and
unstained, according to the teaching of Jesus, then it is clear also
that Jesus, the author of such teaching, is with good reason compared
by Celsus to the captain of a band of robbers. But neither was He
who died for the common good of mankind, nor they who suffered because
of their religion, and alone of all men were persecuted because of what
appeared to them the right way of honouring God, put to death in
accordance with justice, nor was Jesus persecuted without the charge of
impiety being incurred by His persecutors.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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