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| Chapter XXIV
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Chapter
XXIV.
After the instance borrowed from the Mithraic
mysteries, Celsus declares that he who would investigate the Christian
mysteries, along with the aforesaid Persian, will, on comparing the two
together, and on unveiling the rites of the Christians, see in this way
the difference between them. Now, wherever he was able to give
the names of the various sects, he was nothing loth to quote those with
which he thought himself acquainted; but when he ought most of all to
have done this, if they were really known to him, and to have informed
us which was the sect that makes use of the diagram he has drawn, he
has not done so. It seems to me, however, that it is from some
statements of a very insignificant sect called Ophites,4409
| 4409 [Vol. i. p. 354, this
series.] | which he has misunderstood, that, in my
opinion, he has partly borrowed what he says about the
diagram.4410
| 4410 “Utinam
exstaret! Multum enim lucis procul dubio antiquissimorum Patrum
libris, priscæ ecclesiæ temporibus, et quibusdam sacræ
Scripturæ locis, accederet.”—Spencer. | Now, as we
have always been animated by a love of learning,4411
| 4411 κατὰ τὸ
φιλομαθὲς
ἡμῶν. | we have fallen in with this diagram, and we
have found in it the representations of men who, as Paul says,
“creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins,
led away with divers lusts; ever learning, and never able to come to
the knowledge of the truth.”4412
The
diagram was, however, so destitute of all credibility, that neither
these easily deceived women, nor the most rustic class of men, nor
those who were ready to be led away by any plausible pretender
whatever, ever gave their assent to the diagram. Nor, indeed,
have we ever met any individual, although we have visited many parts of
the earth, and have sought out all those who anywhere made profession
of knowledge, that placed any faith in this diagram.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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