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| Chapter XIV
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Chapter XIV.
In designating others by the epithets of
“uninstructed, and servile, and ignorant,” Celsus, I
suppose, means those who are not acquainted with his laws, nor trained
in the branches of Greek learning; while we, on the other hand, deem
those to be “uninstructed” who are not ashamed to address
(supplications) to inanimate objects, and to call upon those for health
that have no strength, and to ask the dead for life, and to entreat the
helpless for assistance.4349
| 4349 τοὺς μὴ
αἰσχυνομένους
ἐν τῷ τοῖς
ἀψύχοις
προσλαλεῖν,
καὶ περὶ μὲν
ὑγείας τὸ
ἀσθενὲς
ἐπικαλουμένους,
περὶ δὲ ζωῆς
τὸ νεκρὸν
ἀξιοῦντας,
περὶ δὲ
ἐπικουρίας
τὸ
ἀπορώτατον
ἱκετεύοντας. | And although
some may say that these objects are not gods, but only imitations and
symbols of real divinities, nevertheless these very individuals, in
imagining that the hands of low mechanics4350
can frame imitations of divinity, are “uninstructed, and servile,
and ignorant;” for we assert that the lowest4351
among us have been set free from this
ignorance and want of knowledge, while the most intelligent can
understand and grasp the divine hope. We do not maintain,
however, that it is impossible for one who has not been trained in
earthly wisdom to receive the “divine,” but we do
acknowledge that all human wisdom is “folly” in comparison
with the “divine.” In the next place, instead of
endeavouring to adduce reasons, as he ought, for his assertions, he
terms us “sorcerers,”4352
and asserts
that “we flee away with headlong speed4353
from the more polished4354
class of persons,
because they are not suitable subjects for our impositions, while we
seek to decoy4355
| 4355 παλεύομεν.
[See note supra, p. 482. S.] | those who are more
rustic.” Now he did not observe that from the very
beginning our wise men were trained in the external branches of
learning: Moses, e.g., in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;
Daniel, and Ananias, and Azariah, and Mishael, in all Assyrian
learning, so that they were found to surpass in tenfold degree all the
wise men of that country. At the present time, moreover, the
Churches have, in proportion to the multitudes (of ordinary believers),
a few “wise” men, who have come over to them from that
wisdom which is said by us to be “according to the
flesh;”4356
and they have also
some who have advanced from it to that wisdom which is
“divine.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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