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| Chapter XV
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Chapter
XV.
Even to
this objection we are not at a loss for an answer consistent with our
idea of God. You ask the reason why God was born among men. If you take
away from life the benefits that come to us from God, you would not be
able to tell me what means you have of arriving at any knowledge of
Deity. In the kindly treatment of us we recognize the benefactor; that
is, from observation of that which happens to us, we conjecture the
disposition of the person who operates it. If, then, love of man be a
special characteristic of the Divine nature, here is the reason for
which you are in search, here is the cause of the presence of God among
men. Our diseased nature needed a healer. Man in his fall needed one to
set him upright. He who had lost the gift of life stood in need of a
life-giver, and he who had dropped away from his fellowship with good
wanted one who would lead him back to good. He who was shut up in
darkness longed for the presence of the light. The captive sought for a
ransomer, the fettered prisoner for some one to take his part, and for
a deliverer he who was held in the bondage of slavery. Were these,
then, trifling or unworthy wants to importune the Deity to come down
and take a survey of the nature of man, when mankind was so miserably
and pitiably conditioned? “But,” it is replied, “man
might have been benefited, and yet God might have continued in a
passionless state. Was it not possible for Him Who in His wisdom framed
the universe, and by the simple impulse of His will brought into
subsistence that which was not, had it so pleased Him, by means of some
direct Divine command to withdraw man from the reach of the opposing
power, and bring him back to his primal state? Whereas He waits for
long periods of time to come round, He submits Himself to the condition
of a human body, He enters upon the stage of life by being born, and
after passing through each age of life in succession, and then tasting
death, at last, only by the rising again of His own body, accomplishes
His object,—as if it was not optional to Him to fulfil His
purpose without leaving the height of His Divine glory, and to save man
by a single command1978
| 1978 Origin answering the same objections says, “I know not what
sort of alteration of mankind it is that Celsus wants, when he doubts
whether it were not possible to improve man by a display of Divine
power, without any one being sent in the course of nature (φύσει) for that purpose. Does he want this to take place among mankind
by a sudden appearance of God destroying evil in their hearts at a
blow, and causing virtue to spring up there? One might well inquire if
it were fitting or possible that such a thing should happen. But we
will suppose that it is so. What then? How will our assent to the truth
be (in that case) praiseworthy? You yourself profess to recognize a
special Providence: therefore you ought just as much to have told
us, as we you, why it is that God, knowing the affairs of men,
does not correct them, and by a single stroke of His power rid Himself
of the whole family of evil. But we confidently assert that He does
send messengers for this very purpose: for His words appealing to
men’s noblest emotions are amongst them. But whereas there had
been already great differences between the various ministers of the
Word, the reformation of Jesus went beyond them all in greatness; for
He did not mean to heal the men of one little corner only of the world,
but He came to save all;” c. Cels. iv. 3, 4. | , letting those long
periods of time alone.” Needful, therefore, is it that
in answer to objections such as these we should draw out the
counter-statement of the truth, in order that no obstacle may be
offered to the faith of those persons who will minutely examine the
reasonableness of the gospel revelation. In the first place, then, as
has been partially discussed before1979
, let us
consider what is that which, by the rule of contraries, is opposed to
virtue. As darkness is the opposite of light, and death of life, so
vice, and nothing else besides, is plainly the opposite of virtue. For
as in the many objects in creation there is nothing which is
distinguished by its opposition to light or life, but only the peculiar
ideas which are their exact opposites, as darkness and death—not
stone, or wood, or water, or man, or anything else in the
world,—so, in the instance of virtue, it cannot be said that any
created thing can be conceived of as contrary to it, but only the idea
of vice. If, then, our Faith preached that the Deity had been begotten
under vicious circumstances, an opportunity would have been afforded
the objector of running down our belief, as that of persons who
propounded incongruous and absurd opinions with regard to the Divine
nature. For, indeed, it were blasphemous to assert that the Deity,
Which is very wisdom, goodness, incorruptibility, and every other
exalted thing in thought or word, had undergone change to the contrary.
If, then, God is real and essential virtue, and no mere existence1980
of any kind is logically opposed to virtue,
but only vice is so; and if the Divine birth was not into vice, but
into human existence; and if only vicious weakness is unseemly and
shameful—and with such weakness neither was God born, nor had it
in His nature to be born,—why are they scandalized at the
confession that God came into touch with human nature, when in relation
to virtue no contrariety whatever is observable in the organization of
man? For neither Reason, nor Understanding1981
,
nor Receptivity for science, nor any other like quality proper to the
essence of man, is opposed to the principle of virtue.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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