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| Chapter XX
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Chapter XX.
But since our views regarding the resurrection have, as
far as time would permit, been stated in part on the present occasion
(for we have systematically examined the subject in greater
detail in other parts of our
writings); and as now we must by means of sound reasoning refute the
fallacies of Celsus, who neither understands the meaning of our
Scripture, nor has the capacity of judging that the meaning of our wise
men is not to be determined by those individuals who make no profession
of anything more than of a (simple) faith in the Christian system, let
us show that men, not to be lightly esteemed on account of their
reasoning powers and dialectic subtleties, have given expression to
very absurd4156
| 4156 σφόδρ᾽
ἀπεμφαίνοντα. | opinions. And
if we must sneer4157
at them as
contemptible old wives’ fables, it is at them rather than at our
narrative that we must sneer. The disciples of the Porch assert,
that after a period of years there will be a conflagration of the
world, and after that an arrangement of things in which everything will
be unchanged, as compared with the former arrangement of the
world. Those of them, however, who evinced their respect for this
doctrine have said that there will be a change, although exceedingly
slight, at the end of the cycle, from what prevailed during the
preceding.4158
| 4158 [Comp. book iv. capp.
lxv.–lxix. pp. 526–528, supra.] | And these men
maintain, that in the succeeding cycle the same things will occur, and
Socrates will be again the son of Sophroniscus, and a native of Athens;
and Phænarete, being married to Sophroniscus, will again become
his mother. And although they do not mention the word
“resurrection,” they show in reality that Socrates, who
derived his origin from seed, will spring from that of Sophroniscus,
and will be fashioned in the womb of Phænarete; and being brought
up at Athens, will practise the study of philosophy, as if his former
philosophy had arisen again, and were to be in no respect different
from what it was before. Anytus and Melitus, too, will arise
again as accusers of Socrates, and the Council of Areopagus will
condemn him to death! But what is more ridiculous still, is that
Socrates will clothe himself with garments not at all different from
those which he wore during the former cycle, and will live in the same
unchanged state of poverty, and in the same unchanged city of
Athens! And Phalaris will again play the tyrant, and his brazen
bull will pour forth its bellowings from the voices of victims within,
unchanged from those who were condemned in the former cycle! And
Alexander of Pheræ, too, will again act the tyrant with a cruelty
unaltered from the former time, and will condemn to death the same
“unchanged” individuals as before. But what need is
there to go into detail upon the doctrine held by the Stoic
philosophers on such things, and which escapes the ridicule of Celsus,
and is perhaps even venerated by him, since he regards Zeno as a wiser
man than Jesus?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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