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| Chapter XXXIII
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Chapter
XXXIII.
Immediately after this, Celsus, assailing the
contents of the first book of Moses, which is entitled
“Genesis,” asserts that “the Jews accordingly
endeavoured to derive their origin from the first race of jugglers and
deceivers,3827
| 3827 ἀπὸ
πρώτης
σπορᾶς
γοήτων καὶ
πλάνων
ἀνθρώπων. | appealing to the
testimony of dark and ambiguous words, whose meaning was veiled in
obscurity, and which they misinterpreted3828
to
the unlearned and ignorant, and that, too, when such a point had never
been called in question during the long preceding period.”
Now Celsus appears to me in these words to have expressed very
obscurely the meaning which he intended to convey. It is
probable, indeed, that his obscurity on this subject is intentional,
inasmuch as he saw the strength of the argument which establishes the
descent of the Jews from their ancestors; while again, on the other
hand, he wished not to appear ignorant that the question regarding the
Jews and their descent was one that could not be lightly disposed
of. It is certain, however, that the Jews trace their genealogy
back to the three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the
names of these individuals possess such efficacy, when united with the
name of God, that not only do those belonging to the nation employ in
their prayers to God, and in the exorcising of demons, the words,
“God of Abraham,3829
| 3829 [This
formula he regards as an adumbration of the Triad (see our vol.
ii. p. 101): thus, “the God of Abraham” = Fatherhood;
“of Isaac” = Sonship; “of Jacob” = Wisdom, and
the Founder of the New Israel.] | and God of Isaac,
and God of Jacob,” but
so also do almost all those who occupy themselves with incantations and
magical rites. For there is found in treatises on magic in many
countries such an invocation of God, and assumption of the divine name,
as implies a familiar use of it by these men in their dealings with
demons. These facts, then—adduced by Jews and Christians to
prove the sacred character of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the
fathers of the Jewish race—appear to me not to have been
altogether unknown to Celsus, but not to have been distinctly set forth
by him, because he was unable to answer the argument which might be
founded on them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
