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| Chapter XXXIV
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Chapter
XXXIV.
This Jew of Celsus, ridiculing Jesus, as he imagines, is
described as being acquainted with the Bacchæ of Euripides, in
which Dionysus says:—
“The divinity himself will liberate me
whenever I wish.”3294
| 3294 Eurip.,
Bacchæ, 498 (ed. Dindorf). |
Now the Jews are not much acquainted with Greek
literature; but suppose that there was a Jew so well versed in it (as
to make such a quotation on his part appropriate), how (does it follow)
that Jesus could not liberate Himself, because He did not do
so? For let him believe from our own Scriptures that Peter
obtained his freedom after having been bound in prison, an angel having
loosed his chains; and that Paul, having been bound in the stocks along
with Silas in Philippi of Macedonia, was liberated by divine power,
when the gates of the prison were opened. But it is probable that
Celsus treats these accounts with ridicule, or that he never read them;
for he would probably say in reply, that there are certain sorcerers
who are able by incantations to unloose chains and to open doors, so
that he would liken the events related in our histories to the doings
of sorcerers. “But,” he continues, “no calamity
happened even to him who condemned him, as there did to Pentheus, viz.,
madness or discerption.”3295
| 3295 Cf. Euseb.,
Hist. Eccles., bk. ii. c. vii. | And yet he
does not know that it was not so much Pilate that condemned Him (who
knew that “for envy the Jews had delivered Him”), as the
Jewish nation, which has been condemned by God, and rent in pieces, and
dispersed over the whole earth, in a degree far beyond what happened to
Pentheus. Moreover, why did he intentionally omit what is related
of Pilate’s wife, who beheld a vision, and who was so moved by it
as to send a message to her husband, saying: “Have thou
nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this
day in a dream because of Him?”3296
And again, passing by in silence the
proofs of the divinity of Jesus, Celsus endeavours to cast reproach
upon Him from the narratives in the Gospel, referring to those who
mocked Jesus, and put on Him the purple robe, and the crown of thorns,
and placed the reed in His hand. From what source now, Celsus,
did you derive these statements, save from the Gospel narratives?
And did you, accordingly, see that they were fit matters for reproach;
while they who recorded them did not think that you, and such as you,
would turn them into ridicule; but that others would receive from them
an example how to despise those who ridiculed and mocked Him on account
of His religion, who appropriately laid down His life for its
sake? Admire rather their love of truth, and that of the Being
who bore these things voluntarily for the sake of men, and who endured
them with all constancy and long-suffering. For it is not
recorded that He uttered any lamentation, or that after His
condemnation He either did or uttered anything
unbecoming.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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