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Chapter
LXXV.
But as he afterwards says that “the teacher
of Christianity acts like a person who promises to restore patients to
bodily health, but who prevents them from consulting skilled
physicians, by whom his ignorance would be exposed,” we shall
inquire in reply, “What are the physicians to whom you refer,
from whom we turn away ignorant individuals? For you do not
suppose that we exhort those to embrace the Gospel who are devoted to
philosophy, so that you would regard the latter as the physicians from
whom we keep away such as we invite to come to the word of
God.” He indeed will make no answer, because he cannot name
the physicians; or else he will be obliged to betake himself to those
of them who are ignorant, and who of their own accord servilely yield
themselves to the worship of many gods, and to whatever other opinions
are entertained by ignorant individuals. In either case, then, he
will be shown to have employed to no purpose in his argument the
illustration of “one who keeps others away from skilled
physicians.” But if, in order to preserve from the
philosophy of Epicurus, and from such as are considered physicians
after his system, those who are deceived by them, why should we not be
acting most reasonably in keeping such away from a dangerous disease
caused by the physicians of Celsus,—that, viz., which leads to
the annihilation of providence, and the introduction of pleasure as a
good? But let it be conceded that we do keep away those whom we
encourage to become our disciples from other
philosopher-physicians,—from the Peripatetics, for example, who
deny the existence of providence and the relation of Deity to
man,—why shall we not piously train3663
3663 For εὐσεβεῖς
in the text, Boherellus conjectures εὐσεβῶς. |
and heal those who have been thus encouraged, persuading them to devote
themselves to the God of all things, and free those who yield obedience to us from
the great wounds inflicted by the words of such as are deemed to be
philosophers? Nay, let it also be admitted that we turn away from
physicians of the sect of the Stoics, who introduce a corruptible god,
and assert that his essence consists of a body, which is capable of
being changed and altered in all its parts,3664
3664 θεὸν
φθαρτὸν
εἰσαγόντων,
καὶ τὴν
οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ
λεγόντων
σῶμα τρεπτὸν
διόλου καὶ
ἀλλοιωτὸν
καὶ
μεταβλητόν. |
and who also maintain that all things will one day perish, and that God
alone will be left; why shall we not even thus emancipate our subjects
from evils, and bring them by pious arguments to devote themselves to
the Creator, and to admire the Father of the Christian system, who has
so arranged that instruction of the most benevolent kind, and fitted
for the conversion of souls,3665
3665 The words in the text
are, φιλανθρωτότατα
ἐπιστρεπτικόν,
καὶ ψυχῶν
μαθήματα
οἰκονομήσαντα,
for which we have adopted in the translation the emendation of
Boherellus, φιλανθρωπότατα
καὶ ψυχῶν
ἐπιστρεπτικὰ
μαθήματα. | should be
distributed throughout the whole human race? Nay, if we should
cure those who have fallen into the folly of believing in the
transmigration of souls through the teaching of physicians, who will
have it that the rational nature descends sometimes into all kinds of
irrational animals, and sometimes into that state of being which is
incapable of using the imagination,3666
3666 ἀλλὰ
κἂν τοὺς
πεπονθότας
τὴν περὶ τῆς
μετενσωματώσεως
ἄνοιαν ἀπὸ
ἰατρῶν, τῶν
καταβιβαζόντων
τὴν λογικὴν
φύσιν ὁτε μὲν
ἐπὶ τὴν
ἀλογον πᾶσαν,
ὁτὲ δὲ καὶ
ἐπὶ τὴν
ἀφάνταστον. | why should we
not improve the souls of our subjects by means of a doctrine which does
not teach that a state of insensibility or irrationalism is produced in
the wicked instead of punishment, but which shows that the labours and
chastisements inflicted upon the wicked by God are a kind of medicines
leading to conversion? For those who are intelligent
Christians,3667
3667 Instead of οἱ
φρονίμωςΧριστιανοὶ
ζῶντες, as in the text,
Ruæus and Boherellus conjecture οι φρονίμως
Χριστιανιζοντες,
etc. | keeping this in
view, deal with the simple-minded, as parents do with very
young3668
3668 τους κομιδῇ
νηπίους. | children. We do not betake ourselves
then to young persons and silly rustics, saying to them, “Flee
from physicians.” Nor do we say, “See that none of
you lay hold of knowledge;” nor do we assert that
“knowledge is an evil;” nor are we mad enough to say that
“knowledge causes men to lose their soundness of
mind.” We would not even say that any one ever perished
through wisdom; and although we give instruction, we never say,
“Give heed to me,” but “Give heed to the God of all
things, and to Jesus, the giver of instruction concerning
Him.” And none of us is so great a braggart3669 as to say what Celsus put in the mouth of
one of our teachers to his acquaintances, “I alone will save
you.” Observe here the lies which he utters against
us! Moreover, we do not assert that “true physicians
destroy those whom they promise to cure.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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