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| Chapter LII
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Chapter LII.
After this, selecting from all the treatises which
contain allegorical explanations and interpretations, expressed in a
language and style not to be despised, the least important,3924
such as might contribute, indeed, to
strengthen the faith of the multitude of simple believers, but were not
adapted to impress those of more intelligent mind, he continues:
“Of such a nature do I know the work to be, entitled
Controversy between one Papiscus and Jason, which is fitted to
excite pity and hatred instead of laughter. It is not my purpose,
however, to confute the statements contained in such works; for their
fallacy is manifest to all, especially if any one will have the
patience to read the books themselves. Rather do I wish to show
that Nature teaches this, that God made nothing that is mortal, but
that His works, whatever they are, are immortal, and theirs
mortal. And the soul3925
is the work of God,
while the nature of the body is different. And in this respect
there is no difference between the body of a bat, or of a worm, or of a
frog, and that of a man; for the matter3926
is
the same, and their corruptible part is alike.”
Nevertheless I could wish that every one who heard Celsus declaiming
and asserting that the treatise entitled Controversy between Jason
and Papiscus regarding Christ was fitted to excite not laughter,
but hatred, could take the work into his hands, and patiently listen to
its contents; that, finding in it nothing to excite hatred, he might
condemn Celsus out of the book itself. For if it be impartially
perused, it will be found that there is nothing to excite even laughter
in a work in which a Christian is described as conversing with a Jew on
the subject of the Jewish Scriptures, and proving that the predictions
regarding Christ fitly apply to Jesus; although the other disputant
maintains the discussion in no ignoble style, and in a manner not
unbecoming the character of a Jew.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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