AN EXTENSION OF THE VIEW WHICH CELSUS THE PHILOSOPHER TOOK OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THE SECOND CENTURY. (Concluded from p. 29.) There is something rather superstitious where Celsus says, that the Christians appear to obtain power by means of the names of inferior deities and by incantations. But, perhaps, he was not so perfect a philosopher, as not to retain some residue of superstition inculcated in him in his infancy. However, it does not appear, that he was willing to adopt any new superstition, by taking up opinions without inquiry; for he blames the Jesuans for their non-inquiring disposition; and he exhorts them, that, in the reception of doctrines, they would follow the guidance of reason† ; since, from the giving assent without, all deceit arises. And that those who yield to belief without reason, are like those who delight in mountebanks and exhibiters of prodigies, or in apparitions of Hecate, or other inferior deities. For as loose people of that description, deluding the common people, lead which ever way they will; in like manner, says he, it is usually done among the Christians. He adds, that some of them will neither give nor ask a reason for their belief, and they use this expression "Do not examine, but believe; and your belief will save you.' And they are wont to say, wisdom is a bad thing, and folly is a good thing. The mother of Jesus, you must know, while she was with child of him, was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter, because she was false to his bed; and she had this child, by a soldier, whose name was Panthera. The boy was brought up in obscurity and engaged himself as a hired servant in Egypt. He made himself acquainted with the art of conjuring, deceptions, and sleight of hand tricks, for which that nation is famous. He returned from that country, and made use of those arts and abilities to attract admiration, and suffered himself to be accounted a God. Was Jesus's mother beautiful, that, on account of her attractions, God thought her worthy of his embraces? Though his nature is such as not to dispose him to the love of a corruptible body. Nor was it at all fit or suitable, that God should fall in love with a girl, neither rich nor royal, and who was hardly known in her own neighbourhood. And when she became hated and was turned out of doors by the carpenter, she was neither saved by her credulity, nor by the power of God. These things are not reconcileable with God's manner of government. On a certain time, when Jesus was bathing with John, an apparition of a bird flew along the air and approached near to him. Who saw this vision, that was a witness worthy to be trusted? Who heard the voice from heaven adopting thee, Oh Jesus, for the Son of God, except thyself and another, who was thy companion both in crime and punishment? If thou art the Christ, tell us freely; though we have only thine own word for it and a partial witness, one of thine own companions. A prophet, formerly, in Jerusalem, said, that a son of God would come to be the judge of the virtuous and the punisher of the wicked. But this alone was predicted, that he would be the judge of the virtuous and the punisher of the wicked! Nothing is said about the place of his birth; nothing about the punishment that was to be inflicted on him by the Jews; * B. 1, 7. + B. 1, p. 8. B. 1, p. 39. nothing about his resurrection, nor his working miracles. How, then, do you, Jesus, discover, that you are predicted in this prophecy, rather than tens of thousands of others, who have lived since the prophecy was pub lished? Some that were madmen and others that were impostors have boasted, that the Son of God has already come down from heaven; but we do not read that the Jews in general admit that any thing of the kind has happened. The prophecies, that are applied to Jesus by his followers, might be made quite to the full as well to suit a variety of other things. Another particular I have to remark, that when Jesus underwent his sentence of crucifixion, he was neither assisted by his Father nor was he able to help or extricate himself. If you mean to say, Jesus, that any man, on account of God's especial care of him, may be regarded as a son of God; in what respect do you excel other men? Countless numbers will engage with Jesus and refute him, while each of them applies to himself what Jesus fancies to be foretold of him by the prophets. Jesus has boasted also, that certain Chaldeans were persuaded to come to him, at the time of his birth, to worship him as a God, when he was an infant: and that they told his high quality to Herod the Tetrarch. And that the latter sent his guards and slew all the children that were born about that time; thinking that he would perish among the rest, and so not live to an age, when he would be capable to assume the regal power §. That is a fabulous narrative also, that relates that the husband withdrew into Egypt with the boy and his mother. But if there was such a sacrifice made of the lives of children, Jesus, that you might not become king, when you was grown up, how is it, that now, you have reached the age of a man, you do not attain to royalty; but on the contrary, that you, the excellent Son of God, should, in a way not in the least respectable, beg your bread in the manner of ragamuffins; and betake yourself, through fear, to lurking-places, and be reduced to a sad plight ||? You, Jesus, after you had collected about you, ten or eleven infamous fellows, tax-gatherers and profligate jack-tars, shifted from one place to another in the country, flying from the hands of justice, obliged to put up with the most ordinary food and the most sorry accommodations. What necessity was there, Jesus, for you to be carried into Egypt, that you might not have your throat cut; for it is not rational to suppose that a God could have any apprehension of death? But an angel must come from heaven to bid your family betake themselves to flight, that you might not be included in the approaching massacre: and so this great God was not able to preserve you his son in your own home; though he had already sent down two angels on your account? We are not to suppose, that there was something divine, Jesus, intermixed with your body and soul, but that your body itself, of course, was something like what is described in the poems of Homer. And yet your blood, it seems, was not such as is usual in the blessed Gods. The fables of the ancients, that assign a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus, and Minos, though they carry no likelihood with them, yet, to make the fiction more probable, they relate of those heroes certain wonderful things, and altogether surpassing the human nature. But what p. 38 and 39. + p. 41. B. 1, p. 47. B. 1, P. 44. § p. 45. 4 р. 51. have you, Jesus, displayed to us, that is excellent or admirable, though you were called upon and challenged in the temple to make it manifest, that you were the Son of God, by some unquestionable miracle * ? Now, suppose we give you credit, Jesus, for your cures, your resurrections, and a multitude fed with a few loaves, and other things related of you, in short, whatever else your disciples have chosen to give out, to set off the greatness of your miracles: these things are only upon a level with the performances of conjurors exhibited in the market-place, and of which they learnt the art in Egypt; and which tricks and deceptions, they admit people to see for a few copper pieces. These conjurors too drive out demons from men, expel diseases with their breath, call back the souls of heroes, and exhibit the imaginary spectacle of sumptuous dinners, and luxurious eatables. Are we then to believe, because they do these things, that, therefore, they are sons of God; ought we not rather to say, that these are the acts of good-for-nothing wretches +? Moreover, the body of a God does not originate as yours originated, Jesus; nor does the body of a God sustain itself on such food as you lived on. Your transactions are those of a profligate conjuror hated by God on account of your wicked doctrines. What I now address myself to the professors of the religion of Jesus. the plague could possess you, that you abandoned the law of your Jewish forefathers; that you should suffer yourselves to be enticed by the fellow, I have been speaking of, and let yourselves be deceived in such a ridiculous manner, and go over from your former customs and rites to a different way of living? Not long ago, he was brought to punishment, and yet you have suffered him to drive you like a herd of brute animals, and induce you to renounce the institutions of your ancestors. How was it possible for the Jews to think Jesus to be the Son of God, since he performed none of those things that he promised? Besides, that, he was condemned to capital punishment, and when there was a search after him, he skulked about concealing himself; and he was captured in a disgraceful manner: for he was betrayed by those whom he called his disciples. But it was not consistent with the condition of a God to betake himself to flight, and be caught, and be conveyed away to punishment; and still less that he should be betrayed and delivered up by his intimate friends, who were privy to all his secrets, who had been his disciples, and who had regarded him as a saviour and as a son and messenger of God. Though I could relate many true particulars of Jesus, and not like what has been written by his disciples and adherents, I think it as well advised to omit them. His partizans have trumped up an idle tale that he foreknew and foretold every thing that was to happen to him. As it was out of their power to deny facts known to every body, they bethought themselves to feign that he knew all those events before hand. With a view to apologize for their master, they have spoken as inconsistently as any one who should affirm that a man was just and honest, yet let it out that he had acted as a knave; and should maintain that he was kind and humane, yet let it appear that he had committed murder; and should assert that he was immortal, yet own that he was dead. This is the part they have acted, in pretending that Jesus was apprized before hand of every thing that was to befal him. For what superior or inferior God, or what man of a good understanding, if he was aware that such things would be likely to happen to him, would not have kept out of the ways of the mischiefs, since he would have had full opportunity to do it? * B. 1, p. 52. + p. 53. p. 51, 59, 62. Besides, how do you, partizans of Jesus, reconcile this contradiction ; if he uttered a prediction conceiving the betrayer and another concerning the denier of himself, how is it, that they did not stand in awe of him, as a God, and the one refrain from delivering him up, and the other from the denial of him? but these two men made so little account of him, that they did deliver him up and deny him. You may depend upon it, that, whenever any man, who has discovered treachery prepared against himself, apprizes those who had formed a design against him, that he has detected their purpose, they will always, for their own sake, abandon their intention. So, because these events were foretold, therefore, so they fell out, that is your reasoning: but because they did happen, these pretended predictions of Jesus are discovered to be all my eye, Betty Martin; for it is inconsistent and incompatible, that those who have had such intimation given them should either deliver up or deny. These things, say you, as he was a God, he foretold, and therefore, they must at all events happen. Then, by your account, a God impelled with irresistible power, his own disciples and prophets, with whom he had taken victuals and drink, to act contrarily to benevolence and to the ties of close friendship: whereas, he might reasonably have been expected, since he is beneficent to all others, to have been so more especially towards his companions. And when nobody would ever be treacherous towards the man who is his mess-mate; yet according to you, he carried on a treacherous project against a God: or rather the God acted a treacherous part towards his table-companions, in making them betrayers and untrue in friendship. Well then, if this author of your faith was pleased to act as he did, and if it was in compliance with the will of his father, that he underwent capital punishment, it is clear, that, being a God, and bearing the whole as a matter of choice, nothing of what he endured was made a trouble of by him. Then, what is the reason of his piping and blubbering and praying, that the fear of destruction may pass away from him in these words, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me? For he underwent neither grief nor uneasiness, at the time of his execution. You religionists of Jesus have not been able to throw even a guise of speciousness over your falsehoods. You, followers of Jesus, allow yourselves an unlimited indulgence, in changing your gospel phrases and passages, three or four different ways, so that you may be able to retract and deny them whenever you are hard pressed in an argument. As for your construing the Jewish prophecies, so as to make them predictions of Jesus; the expressions of the prophets, might be understood in innumerable ways, more fitly, suitably and likely than to apply them to Jesus. Such a pernicious plague of a fellow as Jesus was never predicted, if you will have it that he was foretold. But that he was a God or a son of God nobody can prove from such inapplicable indications or such imperceptible unmeaning rumours. Like as the sun, when it enlightens all other objects, so it displays itself to view brilliantly: in the same manner, it ought to be with the Son of God. Now, you partizans of Jesus, say that the Word of God is the Son of God: and having promised on God's behalf, the Word of God for his Son, for you make it as difficult as you can to catch hold of you; after all this fine promising, you do not produce to view a pure and holy Word; but a man, a fellow, that got himself into an inextricable hobble and was sub+ B. 1, p. 77. * B. 1, p. 72. jected to the most disgraceful punishments, being flogged and suspended on a severe sort of gallows, the cross*. But what is there that Jesus did, that was elevated and noble-minded, like a God looking down upon mankind, and making a laugh and sport of what happened to them? Nay, even he that passed sentence upon him did not suffer any thing on that account; his fate was not at all like that of Pentheus; he was neither driven to madness, nor torn in pieces, If he did not do so sooner, why did not he now, at least, use his divine power, and deliver himself from this disgraceful situation, and handle, according to their deserts, those who had acted unjustly, both towards him and towards his Father? And pray, what sort of blood was that of your master, Jesus, when he was fastened to the severe gallows? was it Such as flows from the happy gods?—Iliad, Book v. p. 340. Your master, Jesus, my friends, was in such a hurry to quench his thirst, that he gulped down the gall and vinegar that were offered him in a sponge, a trick. You tell us, my very good friends, that he had come all the way from heaven. Yet, if the Jew-wags could succeed to play tricks upon travellers, can you blame us for not believing that Jesus was a God, and not crediting that he underwent all these things for the benefit of mankind and do you still find fault with us for setting his punishments at defiance?‡ For, in his life-time, he could not persuade any body to believe in what he taught; no, not even his disciples, since they delivered him up to the ministers of the law, and he got crucified. He had not influence enough with his disciples to counteract their fears about their own safety.§ Besides, Jesus did not show himself exempt from every bad quality; nor was he undeserving of just reproach. Surely you will not tell us, my friends, that after he had miscarried in his attempt to persuade any body whatever in his life-time, he went down to the realms below to persuade the people that live there. If you, the votaries of this convict, after you have been imposed upon in a ridiculous way, will still think yourselves well entrenched in argument by the help of the most absurd sort of defences, what should hinder all other convicts, that have come to an untimely end, from being raised to the rank of angels? Any body else, in the same way, that has the impudence to do it, may say of a man that was a free-booter and a murderer, this was not a free-booter, but a God; for he foretold to the accomplices of his robberies all the punishments that he was to suffer.|| Now remark, my friends, that those who were on the most intimate terms with Jesus, hearers of his words and doctrine, and who saw him consigned to condign punishment and die, these worthies did not choose to die with him or for him; nor could they be prevailed upon to make light of punishment, they would see him at the devil first-the part they took was to deny their master; and will you still adhere to this man? When he began to set his opinions afloat, he only drew to himself ten abandoned tars and tax-gatherers, and he could not persuade all these. If in his life-time he could not induce any body to believe what he ad⚫ vanced, and after his death whoever are willing to take up the cause, persuade numbers of people-is not this astonishingly absurd? What can induce you to think that this fellow was the Son of God? * B. 1, p. 78. + B. 2, p. 81. + Ibid. p. 82. § Ibid. p. 84. |