Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/548

 CELLITES

490

OELSUS

"Life" he shows himself, with intense reality of self- delineation, to be a vain and boastful man, and while the style is simple, even plebeian, there abound dramatic movement and Florentine wit, which make the book "more amusing than any novel" (Walpole). This wonderful romance has great historical value, and sixteenth-century Rome and Florence are therein vividly portrayed. Goethe translated it into German.

Cellini was a soldier, and did yeoman duty at the sack of Rome in 1527; it was claimed he aimed the gun that killed the enemies' leader, Constable Bour- bon. Accused of stealing the Church's funds, Cellini was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Sant' Angelo from 1537 until 1539, when he made his escape. After his recapture he was treated with a harshness out of all proportion to the crime. In- deed, the evidence distinctly pointed to his innocence, and in 1540 the pope granted him a full pardon. Cellini was admitted to the Florentine nobility in 1554. Without pledging himself to enter into re- ligion, he took the first tonsure in 1558, but gave up his aspirations to the priesthood two years later. At the age of sixty-four he married Piera, daughter of Salvadore Parigi who, with a son and daughter, sur- vived him. In 1564 occurred the obsequies of Michelangelo, and, with Ammanati, Cellini repre- sented Sculpture in the funeral procession. Beset with many worries and physical ills he died, and was buried with public honours in the church of the Annunziata, an oration being then delivered " prais- ing him for his life and work". He was a man of sincere faith and, as he says, "took all his difficulties to God".

Cellini's marvellous work in precious metals made him famous throughout Europe. His services in gold, his flagons, rings, and jewels exhibit the highest skill, the perfection of execution, and the widest range of invention. Cellini made the dies for the mints of Pope Paul III and Pope Clement VII, and designed the coins for Duke Alessandro de' Medici of Florence. Everything minted under his direction attained the highest artistic excellence. And, too, his work in alto-rilievo was as fine as that in basso-rilievo. His small figures in gold are beautiful, a morse for Pope Clement's cope, on which the figure of God the Father surmounts a diamond, surrounded by a group of cherubs, and a foil for the pope's diamond being two of his greatest achievements. If there be any fault in his productions, it is a tendency to be luxuriant.

In 1540 Cardinal Ferrara, his benefactor, •who ob- tained his release from prison, took Cellini to Paris, to the Court of Francis I. Here he made a colossal statue of Mars and a silver Jupiter. He began cast- ing life-size and gigantic figures in bronze, and was supremely successful. He consummated his career in 1515. when he returned to Florence to model and c:ist in bronze for Cosimo de' Medici, the famous "Perseus". The sturdy demi-god, with tense muscles, stands firmly, holding aloft in his left hand the head of Medusa, his right tightly gripping a short sword. His calmly triumphant gaz,. rests on the torso prostrate beneath his foot. In the wax model the body of Perseus is not so short and thick, and his limbs are not as coarse as in the finished bronze. The casting of this celebrated statue, which is still in Florence, was the acme of technical dexterity, " t lie metal filling the mould from the head of Medusa to the foot of Perseus". Cellini's last important work was the crucifix in white marble presented to Philip II of Spain by the Duke of Florence, and now in the Escorial. Among his other works still preserved are a golden salt-cellar (Vienna) and a shield, elabo- rately wrought (Windsor Castle).

Pros-, Benvenuto Cellini, Orfevre, M fdailleur, Sculpleur (Paris. 1S83); The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, tr. Stmonds (Lon- don, 1901).

Leigh Hunt.

Cellites. See Alexians.

Celsus. See Nazarius and Celsus.

Celsus the Platonist, an eclectic Platonist and polemical writer against Christianity, who flourished towards the end of the second century. Very little is known about his personal history except that he lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, that his literary activity falls between the years 175 and 180, and that he wrote a work entitled dXijflijs XA70S ("The True Word", or "The True Discourse"), against the Christian religion. He is one of several writers named Celsus, who appeared as opponents of Christianity in the second century; he is probably the Celsus who was known as a friend of Lucian, although some doubt this, because Lucian's friend was an Epicurean, and the author of the "True Dis- course" shows himself a Platonist. It is generally supposed that Celsus was a Roman. His intimate acquaintance, however, with the Jewish religion and his knowledge, such as it was, of Egyptian ideas and customs incline some historians to think he belonged to the Eastern portion of the empire. Those who believe him to have been a Roman explain his knowl- edge of Jewish and Egyptian matters by assuming that he acquired that knowledge either by travelling, or by mingling with the foreign population of Rome.

Celsus owes his prominence in the history of Chris- tian polemics not so much to the pre-eminent charac- ter of his work, as to the circumstance that about the year 240 a copy of the work was sent to Origen by his friend Ambrosius, with a request to write a refutation of it. This Origen, after some hesitation, consent- ed to do, and embodied his answer in the treatise "Against Celsus" (icard K{\<rov). So careful is Ori- gen to cite the very words of his opponent that it is possible to reconstruct the text of Celsus from Ori- gen's answer, a task which was accomplished by Jachmann in 1836, and more successfully by Keim in 1873. The original of Celsus's treatise having per- ished, the text reconstructed from Origen (about nine- tenths of the original has in this way been recovered) is our only primary source.

Celsus's work may be divided as follows: a preface, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of Judaism, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of philosophy, a refutation of Christian teachings in detail, and an appeal to Christians to adopt pagan- ism. In the preface Celsus forecasts the general plan of his attack by describing in the first place the gen- eral character of Christianity and then proceeding to accuse both Christian and Jew of "separatism", that is to say, of arrogating to themselves a superior wis- dom, while in reality their ideas concerning the origin of the universe, etc., are common to all peoples and to the wise men of antiquity. In the second portion, Celsus argues that Christ did not fulfil the Messianic expectations of the Hebrew people. Christ, he says, claimed to be of virgin birth; in reality. He was the son of a Jewish village woman, the wife of a carpenter. The flight into Egypt, the absence of any divine inter- vent ion in favour of the Mother of Jesus, who was driven forth with her husband, and other arguments are used to show that Christ was not the Messias. During the course of His public ministry Christ could not convince His countrymen that Mis mission was divine. As followers He had ten or twelve " infamous publicans and fishermen". Such is not the company that befits a god. (This is one "lit of many instances in which Celsus suddenly passes from the Jewish to the pagan point of view.) As to the miracles ascribed to Christ, some, said Celsus, were merely fictitious narratives, the others, if they did really take place, are not more wonderful than the deeds of the Egyp- tians and other adepts in the magic arts. He next proceeds (cf. Orig., "Contra Celsum", II) to upbraid those Jews who, "abandoning the law of their fa-