Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/308

Rh scientific opponents of Christianity in the present day. The True Discourse is divided into two parts. In the first he does not speak in his own person, but introduces a Jew who discusses from the Jewish point of view the credibility of the statements made by Christians in reference to the life of Jesus. There was considerable advantage in this mode of procedure. Celsus himself did not believe in the supernatural. The only possibility of the existence of such a person as the Christian Jesus that he could conceive depended upon his being daemonic, but Jesus showed nothing of that majesty, that grandeur, that energy of will in worldly affairs which he deemed essential to the daemon. He therefore rejected his pretensions entirely as inconsistent with his philosophy ; but he believed that even on the basis of a philosophy which permitted the supernatural the claims of Jesus must be rejected. And so his arguments are made to come from a Jew. The Jew rejects the miraculous birth of Jesus. Mary was divorced from her husband, and wandering about fell in with a Ixoman soldier, Panthera, who was the father of Jesus. Jesus being needy went down to Egypt and there learned all the tricks by which he could work apparent miracles, and on the strength of this knowledge he claimed to be God when he returned to Judea. But who could believe the statements made in regard to him, who heard the voice at his baptism? None but himself and a companion who shared his dream or rather his imposture. The miracles ascribed to him are absurd. Any one could see such miracles by paying a few obols to an Egyptian juggler. If Jesus was God, would he have chosen such wicked and worthless men as his apostles? If he knew that Judas would betray him, why did he make him his companion] But the story of the resurrection especially seemed absurd. He was condemned publicly before the eyes of all. No one could doubt this. If he rose again, why did he not make his justification as public ? Would he not have confronted his judge, his accusers, the general public, and given indubitable evidence that he was not a malefactor 1 And who saw him after he rose again ? A half insane woman and one or two followers who were in the very humour to trust to dreams or to an excited fancy. In this way the Jew discusses many of the statements made in the gospels, and comes to the conclusion that Jesus was an ordinary man. In the second part Celsus tests the beliefs of the Christians by his philosphical principles. He then shows that the Greeks had all that was true in Christianity, but in a nobler and better form, and he ends with a practical application, urging Christians to give up their separatist tendency, to worship the daemons, and to join in all civil and military duties imposed on citizens by the state. Before dealing with the principles of the Christians he draws attention to the false position which they occupy. They are, he thinks, essentially rebellious. They wish to separate themselves from the rest of mankind. The Jews show this tendency, but they are so far to be excused in that they adhere to their national beliefs. These beliefs indeed are often silly and puerile, and perversions of what is wiser and better in Greek poets and philosophers. But the Christians belong to no nationality, and separate themselves from the ordinary beliefs without any good cause. They object to the divinity of the Dioscuri, Hercules, and others, in regard to whom the Greeks believe that they became gods from being men. And yet they worship a man who was a prisoner and died. This worship is on a level with that of Zamolxis by the Getae, of Mopsus by the Cilicians, and of others whom he names. It is unreasonable. Accordingly the Christians do not invite the wise or the good. It is ignorant slaves, women, and children whom they try to influence, not publicly but in corners and private places. And their divisive tend encies are shown in the number of the sects which exist among them. After this introduction Celsus proceeds with his philoso phical argument. God is good and beautiful and blessed. He therefore cannot change. For if he were to change, it could only be for the worse. Therefore God cannot come down to men. He cannot assume a mortal body. He cannot do it in reality, for that would be contrary to his nature ; he cannot do it in appearance, for that would be to deceive, and God cannot deceive. Indeed the idea is absurd. What advantage could be gained by his coming 2 Does he not know all things ] Has he not power to do all things without assuming a body? Is he not able as God to do everything that he could do as incarnated God 1 And no real advantage is got for men; for they do not know God better by seeing him in bodily form. God must be seen by the soul, and men are deceived if they imagine they know Him better by seeing Him in a corruptible body than when they see Him with the pure eye of the soul. Indeed Christianity is in this respect marked by a gross anthropomorphism. Nor can the purpose which Christians assign for this incarnation be regarded as true. The nature of the whole is always one and the same. There is always the same amount of evil in the world. There is nothing evil in God. The evil is in matter. But God is continually making the evil serve for the good of the whole. If this is the case, then, it is absurd to suppose that God would be especially interested in a few of the human race. He works always for the whole. And the Christian notion is peculiarly absurd. Did God at that particular time waken from sleep and resolve to rescue a few from sin 1 Was He indifferent to all mankind before, to all the nations of the earth? And is He to continue to show the same special favour only for a select number 1 Not only are the Christians wrong in this, but they are wrong in supposing that tho world was made for man. Again it is the whole that is cared for. And we can see signs in nature that animals are equal if not superior to man in many points. If he hunts the deer, the Lion hunts him and feeds on him. Bees have cities and rulers. Some animals speak to each other. Some can foretell the future. Some are religious. In fact neither for animals nor man was the universe made, but that the world as God s work might be perfect in every part. In these arguments we have a remarkable anticipa tion of many of the points which come out in our present Darwinian discussions (see Tdeologie und Naturalismus in der altckristlichen Zait : Der Kampf des Origenes gegen Ctlsus iim die Stdhmg des Menschtn in der A attir, dargestellt von Dr Phil. Aug. Kind: Jena, 1875). In exhibiting the superiority of the Greek doctrines over the Christian, Celsus points to the circumstance that the Greeks appeal to reason, the Christians cry out, &quot; Believe, believe.&quot; The doctrine of the Son of God, he thinks, was borrowed from Plato. The Devil owed his origin to a distortion of a Greek opinion. He compares the prophecies of the Greeks with those of the Christians, and he contrasts Greek and Christian doctrines of a future state, and speaks of the resurrection as a ridiculous belief. In the practical application he maintains that the daemons are subordinate ministers of God, and that there fore any worship paid to them is worship also of the Supreme God himself. Especially the Christians Lave no good reason for objecting to such worship since they already worship a dead man. Our abstract of this work is necessarily very imperfect, and many important points we have been compelled to omit entirely. From what has been given, it will be seen that Celsus was a Platonist. He believed in a Supreme God, the Supreme Good, higher than all existence. This