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Chapter
LXI.
After the above remarks he proceeds as
follows: “Let no one suppose that I am ignorant that some
of them will concede that their God is the same as that of the Jews,
while others will maintain that he is a different one, to whom the
latter is in opposition, and that it was from the former that the Son
came.” Now, if he imagine that the existence of numerous
heresies among the Christians is a ground of accusation against
Christianity, why, in a similar way, should it not be a ground of
accusation against philosophy, that the various sects of philosophers
differ from each other, not on small and indifferent points, but upon
those of the highest importance? Nay, medicine also ought to be a
subject of attack, on account of its many conflicting schools.
Let it be admitted, then, that there are amongst us some who deny that
our God is the same as that of the Jews: nevertheless, on that
account those are not to be blamed who prove from the same Scriptures
that one and the same Deity is the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles
alike, as Paul, too, distinctly says, who was a convert from Judaism to
Christianity, “I thank my God, whom I serve from my forefathers
with a pure conscience.”4265
And let it be
admitted also, that there is a third class who call certain persons
“carnal,” and others “spiritual,”—I think
he here means the followers of Valentinus,—yet what does this
avail against us, who belong to the Church, and who make it an
accusation against such as hold that certain natures are saved, and
that others perish in consequence of their natural
constitution?4266
And let it be
admitted further, that there are some who give themselves out as
Gnostics, in the same way as those Epicureans who call themselves
philosophers: yet neither will they who annihilate the doctrine
of providence be deemed true philosophers, nor those true Christians
who introduce monstrous inventions, which are disapproved of by those
who are the disciples of Jesus. Let it be admitted, moreover,
that there are some who accept Jesus, and who boast on that account of
being Christians, and yet would regulate their lives, like the Jewish
multitude, in accordance with the Jewish law,—and these are the
twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus
was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that He was begotten
like other human beings,—what does that avail by way of charge
against such as belong to the Church, and whom Celsus has styled
“those of the multitude?”4267
He adds, also, that certain of the
Christians are believers in the Sibyl,4268
having probably misunderstood some who blamed such as believed in the
existence of a prophetic Sibyl, and termed those who held this belief
Sibyllists.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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