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| Chapter XXXVII
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Chapter
XXXVII.
Celsus, moreover, thinks that we have invented
this “tree of life” to give an allegorical meaning to the
cross; and in consequence of his error upon this point, he adds:
“If he had happened to be cast down a precipice, or shoved into a
pit, or suffocated by hanging, there would have been invented a
precipice of life far beyond the heavens, or a pit of resurrection, or
a cord of immortality.” And again: “If the
‘tree of life’ were an invention, because
he—Jesus—(is reported) to have been a carpenter, it would
follow that if he had been a leather-cutter, something would have been
said about holy leather; or had he been a stone-cutter, about a blessed
stone; or if a worker in iron, about an iron of love.” Now,
who does not see at once4471
the paltry nature
of his charge, in thus calumniating men whom he professed to convert on
the ground of their being deceived? And after these remarks, he
goes on to speak in a way quite in harmony with the tone of those who
have invented the fictions of lion-like, and ass-headed, and
serpent-like ruling angels,4472
and other similar
absurdities, but which does not affect those who belong to the
Church. Of a truth, even a drunken old woman would be ashamed to
chaunt or whisper to an
infant, in order to lull him to sleep, any such fables as those have
done who invented the beings with asses’ heads, and the
harangues, so to speak, which are delivered at each of the gates.
But Celsus is not acquainted with the doctrines of the members of the
Church, which very few have been able to comprehend, even of those who
have devoted all their lives, in conformity with the command of Jesus,
to the searching of the Scriptures, and have laboured to investigate
the meaning of the sacred books, to a greater degree than Greek
philosophers in their efforts to attain a so-called wisdom.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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