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Chapter LIX.
Celsus then continues: “The Jews
accordingly, and these (clearly meaning the Christians), have the same
God;” and as if advancing a proposition which would not be
conceded, he proceeds to make the following assertion: “It
is certain, indeed, that the members of the great Church4257
4257 τῶν ἀπὸ
μεγάλης
ἐκκλησίας. | admit this, and adopt as true the accounts
regarding the creation of the world which are current among the Jews,
viz., concerning the six days and the seventh;” on which day, as
the Scripture says, God “ceased”4258
from His works, retiring into the contemplation of Himself, but on
which, as Celsus says (who does not abide by the letter of the history,
and who does not understand its meaning), God
“rested,”4259 —a term which
is not found in the record. With respect, however, to the
creation of the world, and the “rest4260
which is reserved after it for the people of God,” the subject is
extensive, and mystical, and profound, and difficult of
explanation. In the next place, as it appears to me, from a
desire to fill up his book, and to give it an appearance of importance,
he recklessly adds certain statements, such as the following, relating
to the first man, of whom he says: “We give the same
account as do the Jews, and deduce the same genealogy from him as they
do.” However, as regards “the conspiracies of
brothers against one another,” we know of none such, save that
Cain conspired against Abel, and Esau against Jacob; but not Abel
against Cain, nor Jacob against Esau: for if this had been the
case, Celsus would have been correct in saying that we give the same
accounts as do the Jews of “the conspiracies of brothers against
one another.” Let it be granted, however, that we speak of
the same descent into Egypt as they, and of their return4261
4261 τὴν ἐκεῖθεν
ἐπάνοδον. | thence, which was not a
“flight,”4262 as Celsus considers
it to have been, what does that avail towards founding an accusation
against us or against the Jews? Here, indeed, he thought to cast
ridicule upon us, when, in speaking of the Hebrew people, he termed
their exodus a “flight;” but when it was his business to
investigate the account of the punishments inflicted by God upon Egypt,
that topic he purposely passed by in silence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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