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| Chapter XXVI
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Chapter
XXVI.
But if it is on account of those opinions of the
Christians and Jews which displease Celsus (and which he does not at
all appear to understand) that they are to be regarded as worms and
ants, and the rest of mankind as different, let us examine the
acknowledged opinions of Christians and Jews,3779
| 3779 τὰ αὐτόθεν
πᾶσι
προφαινόμενα
δόγματα
Χριστιανῶν
καὶ
᾽Ιουδαίων. |
and compare them with those of the rest of mankind, and see whether it
will not appear to those who have once admitted that certain men are
worms and ants, that they are the worms and ants and frogs who
have fallen away from sound views of God, and, under a vain appearance
of piety,3780
| 3780 φαντασίᾳ δ᾽
εὐσεβείας. | worship either
irrational animals, or images, or other objects, the works of
men’s hands;3781
| 3781 ἢ καὶ
τὰ
δημιουργἠματα. | whereas, from the
beauty of such, they ought to admire the Maker of them, and worship
Him: while those are indeed men, and more honourable than men (if
there be anything that is so), who, in obedience to their reason, are
able to ascend from stocks and stones,3782
nay, even from what is reckoned the most precious of all
matter—silver and gold; and who ascend up also from the beautiful
things in the world to the Maker of all, and entrust themselves to Him
who alone is able to satisfy3783
all existing
things, and to overlook the thoughts of all, and to hear the prayers of
all; who send up their prayers to Him, and do all things as in the
presence of Him who beholds everything, and who are careful, as in the
presence of the Hearer of all things, to say nothing which might not
with propriety be reported to God. Will not such piety as
this—which can be overcome neither by labours, nor by the dangers
of death, nor by logical plausibilities3784
| 3784 ὑπὸ
λογικῶν
πιθανοτήτων. | —be of no avail in preventing those who
have obtained it from being any longer compared to worms, even if they
had been so represented before their assumption of a piety so
remarkable? Will they who subdue that fierce longing for sexual
pleasures which has reduced the souls of many to a weak and feeble
condition, and who subdue it because they are persuaded that they
cannot otherwise have communion with God, unless they ascend to Him
through the exercise of temperance, appear to you to be the brothers of
worms, and relatives of ants, and to bear a likeness to frogs? What! is the
brilliant quality of justice, which keeps inviolate the rights common
to our neighbour, and our kindred, and which observes fairness, and
benevolence, and goodness, of no avail in saving him who practises it
from being termed a bird of the night? And are not they who
wallow in dissoluteness, as do the majority of mankind, and they who
associate promiscuously with common harlots, and who teach that such
practices are not wholly contrary to propriety, worms who roll in
mire?—especially when they are compared with those who have been
taught not to take the “members of Christ,” and the body
inhabited by the Word, and make them the “members of a
harlot;” and who have already learned that the body of the
rational being, as consecrated to the God of all things, is the temple
of the God whom they worship, becoming such from the pure conceptions
which they entertain of the Creator, and who also, being careful not to
corrupt the temple of God by unlawful pleasure; practise temperance as
constituting piety towards God!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
