Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XII
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XII.
In the next place, since he reproaches us with the
existence of heresies in Christianity as being a ground of accusation
against it, saying that “when Christians had greatly increased in
numbers, they were divided and split up into factions, each individual
desiring to have his own party;” and further, that “being
thus separated through their numbers, they confute one another, still
having, so to speak, one name in common, if indeed they still
retain it. And this is the only thing which they are yet ashamed
to abandon, while other matters are determined in different ways by the
various sects.” In reply to which, we say that heresies of
different kinds have never originated from any matter in which the
principle involved was not important and beneficial to human
life. For since the science of medicine is useful and necessary
to the human race, and many are the points of dispute in it respecting
the manner of curing bodies, there are found, for this reason, numerous
heresies confessedly prevailing in the science of medicine among the
Greeks, and also, I suppose, among those barbarous nations who profess
to employ medicine. And, again, since philosophy makes a
profession of the truth, and promises a knowledge of existing things
with a view to the regulation of life, and endeavours to teach what is
advantageous to our race, and since the investigation of these matters
is attended with great differences of opinion,3472
| 3472 πολλὴν ἔχει
διολκήν. |
innumerable heresies have consequently sprung up in philosophy, some of
which are more celebrated than others. Even Judaism itself
afforded a pretext for the origination of heresies, in the different
acceptation accorded to the writings of Moses and those of the
prophets. So, then, seeing Christianity appeared an object of
veneration to men, not to the more servile class alone, as Celsus
supposes, but to many among the Greeks who were devoted to literary
pursuits,3473
there necessarily
originated heresies,—not at all, however, as the result of
faction and strife, but through the earnest desire of many literary men
to become acquainted with the doctrines of Christianity. The
consequence of which was, that, taking in different acceptations those
discourses which were believed by all to be divine, there arose
heresies, which received their names from those individuals who
admired, indeed, the origin of Christianity, but who were led, in some
way or other, by certain plausible reasons, to discordant views.
And yet no one would act rationally in avoiding medicine because of its
heresies; nor would he who aimed at that which is seemly3474
entertain a hatred of philosophy, and adduce
its many heresies as a pretext for his antipathy. And so neither
are the sacred books of Moses and the prophets to be condemned on
account of the heresies in Judaism.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
