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| Chapter XXVII
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Chapter
XXVII.
After the matter of the diagram, he brings forward
certain monstrous statements, in the form of question and
answer,4422
| 4422 ἀλλόκοτα καὶ
ἀμοιβαίας
φωνάς. | regarding what is
called by ecclesiastical writers the “seal,” statements
which did not arise from imperfect information; such as that “he
who impresses the seal is called father, and he who is sealed is called
young man and son;” and who answers, “I have been anointed
with white ointment from the tree of life,”—things which we
never heard to have occurred even among the heretics. In the next
place, he determines even the number mentioned by those who deliver
over the seal, as that “of seven angels, who attach themselves to
both sides of the soul of the dying body; the one party being named
angels of light, the others ‘archontics;’”4423
and he asserts that the “ruler of
those named ‘archontics’ is termed the
‘accursed’ god.” Then, laying hold of the
expression, he assails, not without reason, those who venture to use
such language; and on that account we entertain a similar feeling of
indignation with those who censure such individuals, if indeed there
exist any who call the God of the Jews—who sends rain and
thunder, and who is the Creator of this world, and the God of Moses,
and of the cosmogony which he records—an “accursed”
divinity. Celsus, however, appears to have had in view in
employing these expressions, not a rational4424
| 4424 οὐκ
εὔγνωμον
ἀλλά…πάνυ
ἀγνωμονέστατον. | object, but one of a most irrational kind,
arising out of his hatred towards us, which is so unlike a
philosopher. For his aim was, that those who are unacquainted
with our customs should, on perusing his treatise, at once assail us as
if we called the noble Creator of this world an “accursed
divinity.” He appears to me, indeed, to have acted like
those Jews who, when Christianity began to be first preached, scattered
abroad false reports of the Gospel, such as that “Christians
offered up an infant in sacrifice, and partook of its flesh;” and
again, “that the professors of Christianity, wishing to do the
‘works of darkness,’ used to extinguish the lights (in
their meetings), and each one to have sexual intercourse with any woman
whom he chanced to meet.” These calumnies have long
exercised, although unreasonably, an influence over the minds of very
many, leading those who are aliens to the Gospel to believe that
Christians are men of such a character; and even at the present day
they mislead some, and prevent them from entering even into the simple
intercourse of conversation with those who are
Christians.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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