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| Chapter XLIV
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Chapter
XLIV.
Celsus supposes that we may arrive at a knowledge of God
either by combining or separating certain things after the methods
which mathematicians call synthesis and analysis, or again by analogy,
which is employed by them also, and that in this way we may as it were
gain admission to the chief good. But when the Word of God says,
“No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
Him,”4783
He declares that no
one can know God but by the help of divine grace coming from above,
with a certain divine inspiration. Indeed, it is reasonable to
suppose that the knowledge of God is beyond the reach of human nature,
and hence the many errors into which men have fallen in their views of
God. It is, then, through the goodness and love of God to
mankind, and by a marvellous exercise of divine grace to those whom He
saw in His foreknowledge, and knew that they would walk worthy of Him
who had made Himself known to them, and that they would never swerve
from a faithful attachment to His service, although they were condemned
to death or held up to ridicule by those who, in ignorance of what true
religion is, give that name to what deserves to be called anything
rather than religion. God doubtless saw the pride and arrogance
of those who, with contempt for all others, boast of their knowledge of
God, and of their profound acquaintance with divine things obtained
from philosophy, but who still, not less even than the most ignorant,
run after their images, and temples, and famous mysteries; and seeing
this, He “has chosen the foolish things of this
world”4784
—the simplest
of Christians, who lead, however, a life of greater moderation and
purity than many philosophers—“to confound the wise,”
who are not ashamed to address inanimate things as gods or images of
the gods. For what reasonable man can refrain from smiling when
he sees that one who has learned from philosophy such profound and
noble sentiments about God or the gods, turns straightway to images and
offers to them his prayers, or imagines that by gazing upon these
material things he can ascend from the visible symbol to that which is
spiritual and immaterial.4785
| 4785 [Vol. ii. p. 186, this
series.] | But a
Christian, even of the common people, is assured that every place forms
part of the universe, and that the whole universe is God’s
temple. In whatever part of the world he is, he prays; but he
rises above the universe, “shutting the eyes of sense, and
raising upwards the eyes of the soul.” And he stops not at
the vault of heaven; but passing in thought beyond the heavens, under
the guidance of the Spirit of God, and having thus as it were gone
beyond the visible universe, he offers prayers to God. But he
prays for no trivial blessings, for he has learnt from Jesus to seek
for nothing small or mean, that is, sensible objects, but to ask only
for what is great and truly divine; and these things God grants to us,
to lead us to that blessedness which is found only with Him through His
Son, the Word, who is God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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