At the other extremity of creation are men—"proud in reason, loud in speech, immortal of soul, mortal of member, in mind light and anxious, in body brute and feeble, divers in character, in error the same, in daring pervicacious, in hope, pertinacious, of vain toil, of frail fortune, severally mortal, generally continuous, mutable in the succession of offspring, time fleeting, wisdom lingering, death swift and life querulous, so they live."[86] Between such beings and the gods, contact cannot be. "To whom then shall I recite prayers? to whom tender vows? to whom slay victim? on whom shall I call, to help the wretched, to favour the good, to counter the evil? .... What thinkest thou? Shall I swear 'by Jove the stone' (per Iovem lapidem) after the most ancient manner of Rome? Yet if Plato's thought be true, that never god and man can meet, the stone will hear me more easily than Jupiter."[87]
"Nay, not so far—(for Plato shall answer, the thought is his, if mine the voice) not so far, he saith, do I pronounce the gods to be sejunct and alienate from us, as to think that not even our prayers can reach them. Not from the care of human affairs, but from contact, have I removed them. But there are certain mediary divine powers, between æther above and earth beneath, situate in that mid space of air, by whom our desires and our deserts reach the gods. These the Greeks call dæmons, carriers between human and heavenly, hence of prayers, thence of gifts; back and forth they fare, hence with petition, thence with sufficiency, interpreters and bringers of salvation."[88] To cut short this flow of words, the dæmons are, as is familiar to us by now, authors of divination of all kinds, each in its province. It would ill fit the majesty of the gods to send a dream to Hannibal or to soften the whetstone for Attius Navius—these are the functions of the intermediate spirits.[89] Justin's explanation of the theophanies of the Old Testament may recur to the reader's mind, and not unjustly.[90]
The dæmons are framed of a purer and rarer matter than we, "of that purest liquid of air, of that serene element," invisible therefore to us unless of their divine will they choose to be seen.[91] From their ranks come those "haters and lovers" of men, whom the poets describe as gods—they feel pity and indignation, pain and joy and "every feature of the human mind"; while the gods above "are lords ever of one state in eternal equability," and know no passions of any kind. The dæmons share their immortality and our passion. Hence we may accept the local diversities of religious cult, rites nocturnal or diurnal, victims, ceremonies and ritual sad or gay, Egyptian or Greek,—neglect of these things the dæmons resent, as we learn in dream and oracle.
The human soul, too, is "a dæmon in a body"—the Genius of the Latins. From this we may believe that after death souls good and bad become good and bad ghosts—Lares and Lemures—and even gods, such as "Osiris in Egypt and Æsculapius everywhere."[92] Higher still are such dæmons as Sleep and Love, and of this higher kind Plato supposes our guardian spirits to be—"spectators and guardians of individual men, never seen, ever present, arbiters not merely of all acts, but of all thoughts," and after death witnesses for or against us. Of such was Socrates' familiar dæmon. Why should not we too live after the model of Socrates, studying philosophy and obeying our dæmon?
The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass is the chief work of Apuleius. Lector intende; lætaberis, he says in ending his short preface, and he judged his work aright. The hero, Lucius, is a man with an extravagant interest in magic, and he puts himself in the way of hearing the most wonderful stories of witchcraft and enchantment. Apuleius tells them with the utmost liveliness and humour. Magical transformations, the vengeance of witches, the vivification of waterskins—one tale comes crowding after another, real and vivid, with the most alarming and the most amusing details. For example, we are told by an eye-witness (like everybody else in the book he is a master-hand at story-telling) how he saw witches by night cut the throat of his friend, draw out the heart and plug the hole with a sponge; how terrified he was of the hags to begin with, and then lest he should himself be accused of the murder; how the man rose and went on his journey—somewhat wearily, it is true; and how, as they rested, he stooped to drink, the sponge fell out and he was dead.
Lucius meddles with the drugs of a witch, and, wishing to transform himself to a bird, by the ill-luck of using the wrong box he becomes an ass. He is carried off by robbers, and, while he has the most varied adventures of his own, he is enabled to record some of the most gorgeous exploits that brigands ever told one another in an ass's hearing.[93] What is more, a young girl is captured and held to ransom, and to comfort her for a little, the old woman who cooks the robbers' food—"a witless and bibulous old hag"—tells her a story—"such a pretty little tale," that the ass, who is listening, wishes he had pen and paper to take it down. For, while in aspect Lucius is an ass, his mind remains human—human enough to reflect sometimes what "a genuine ass" he is—and his skin has not, he regrets, the proper thickness of true ass-hide. The tale which he would like to write down is Cupid and Psyche. "Erant in quadam civitate," begins the old woman—"There were in a certain city a king and a queen."
The old and universal fairy-tales of the invisible husband, the cruel sisters, and the impossible quests are here woven together and brought into connexion with the Olympic pantheon, and through all runs a slight thread, only here and there visible, of allegory. But if Psyche is at times the soul, and if the daughter she bears to Cupid is Pleasure, the fairy-tale triumphs gloriously over the allegory, and remains the most wonderful thing of the kind in Latin. Here, and in the Golden Ass in general, the extraordinarily embroidered language of Apuleius is far more in keeping than in his philosophic writings. His hundreds of diminutives and neologisms, his antitheses, alliterations, assonances, figures and tropes, his brilliant invention, his fun and humour, here have full scope and add pleasure to every fresh episode of the fairy-tale and of the larger and more miscellaneous tale of adventure in which it is set—in the strangest setting conceivable. Cupid and Psyche is his own addition to the story of the Ass—quite irrelevant, and like many other irrelevant things in books an immense enrichment.
Another development of the original story which is similarly due to Apuleius alone is the climax in the last book. The ass, in the Greek story, becomes a man by eating roses. In the Latin, Lucius, weary of the life of an ass, finds himself by moonlight on the seashore near Corinth, and amid "the silent secrets of opaque night," he reflects that "the supreme goddess rules in transcendent majesty and governs human affairs by her providence." So he addresses a rather too eloquent prayer to the Queen of Heaven under her various possible names, Ceres, Venus, Diana and Proserpine. He then falls asleep, and at once "lo! from mid sea, uplifting a countenance venerable even to gods, emerges a divine form. Gradually the vision, gleaming all over, and shaking off the sea, seemed to stand before me." A crown of flowers rests on her flowing hair. Glittering stars, the moon, flowers and fruits, are wrought into her raiment, which shimmers white and yellow and red as the light falls upon it. In one hand is a sistrum, in the other a golden vessel shaped like a boat, with an asp for its handle.[94] She speaks.
Isis
"Lo! I come in answer, Lucius, to thy prayers, I mother of Nature, mistress of all the elements, initial offspring of ages, chief of divinities, queen of the dead, first of the heavenly ones, in one form expressing all gods and goddesses. I rule with my rod the bright pinnacles of heaven, the healthful breezes of the sea, the weeping silence of the world below. My sole godhead, in many an aspect, with many a various rite, and many a name, all the world worships." Some of these names she recites, and then declares her "true name, Queen Isis."[95] The next day is her festival, she says, and her priest, taught by her in a dream, will tender Lucius the needful roses; he will eat and be a man again. But hereafter all his life must be devoted to the goddess, and then in the Elysian fields he shall see her again, shining amid the darkness of Acheron, propitious to him.
The next day all falls as predicted. The procession of Isis is elaborately described.[96] The prelude of the pomp is a series of men dressed in various characters,—one like a soldier, another like a woman, others like a gladiator, a philospher and so forth. There is a tame bear dressed like a woman, and a monkey "in a Phrygian garment of saffron." Then come women in white, crowned with flowers, some with mirrors hanging on their backs, some carrying ivory combs. Men and women follow with torches and lamps; then a choir of youths in white, singing a hymn, and fluteplayers dedicated to Serapis. After this a crowd of initiates of both sexes, of every age and degree, dressed in white linen and carrying sistra,—the men with shaven heads. Then came five chief priests with emblems, and after them the images of the gods borne by other priests—Anubis with his dog's head, black and gold—after him the figure of a cow "the prolific image of the all-mother goddess" ("which one of this blessed ministry bore on his shoulder, with mimicking gait")—then an image of divinity, like nothing mortal, an ineffable symbol, worthy of all veneration for its exquisite art. At this point came the priest with the promised roses—"my salvation"—and Lucius ate and was a man again. The priest, in a short homily, tells him he has now reached the haven of quiet; Fortune's blindness has no more power over him; he is taken to the bosom of a Fortune who can see, who can illuminate even the other gods. Let him rejoice and consecrate his life to the goddess, undertake her warfare and become her soldier.[97]
The pomp moves onward till they reach the shore, and there a sacred ship is launched—inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics, purified with a burning torch, an egg, and sulphur, on her sail a vow written in large letters. She is loaded with aromatics; and "filled with copious gifts and auspicious prayers" she sails away before a gentle breeze and is lost to sight. The celebrants then return to the temple, but we have perhaps followed them far enough.
From now on to the end of the book the reformed Lucius lives in the odour of sanctity. He never sleeps without a vision of the goddess. He passes on from initiation to initiation, though the service of religion is difficult, chastity arduous, and life now a matter of circumspection—it had not been before. The initiations are, he owns, rather expensive.[98] "Perhaps, my enthusiastic reader, thou wilt ask—anxiously enough—what was said, what done. I would speak if it were lawful to speak, thou shouldst know if it were lawful to hear.... Hear then, and believe, for it is true. I drew near to the confines of death; I trod the threshold of Proserpine; I was borne through all the elements and returned. At midnight I saw the sun flashing with bright light. Gods of the world below, gods of the world above, into their presence I came, I worshipped there in their sight." Garments, emblems, rites, purifications are the elements of his life now. Nor does he grudge the trouble and expense, for the gods are blessing him with forensic success. In a dream, Osiris himself "chief among the great gods, of the greater highest, greatest of the highest, ruler of the greatest," appears in person, and promises him—speaking with his own awful voice—triumphs at the bar, with no need to fear the envy his learning might rouse. He should be one of the god's own Pastophori, one of "his quinquennial decurions." So "with my hair perfectly shaved, I performed in gladness the duties of that most ancient college, established in Sulla's times, not shading nor covering my baldness, but letting it be universally conspicuous." And there ends the Golden Ass.
Was it true—this story of the ass? Augustine says that Apuleius "either disclosed or made up" these adventures. Both he and Lactantius had to show their contemporaries that there was a difference between the miracles of Apuleius and those of Christ.[99] The Emperor Septimius Severus, on the other hand, sneered at his rival Albinus for reading "the Punic Milesian-tales of his fellow-countryman Apuleius and such literary trifles."[100]
Apuleius and his initiation
Between these two judgments we may find Apuleius. He is a man of letters, but he has a taste for religion. Ceremony, mystery, ritual, sacraments, appeal to him, and there he stands with his contemporaries. But a man, in whose pages bandit and old woman, ass and Isis, all talk in one Euphuistic strain, was possibly not so pious as men of simpler speech. Yet his giving such a conclusion to such a tale is significant, and there is not an absurdity among all the many, in which he so gaily revels, but corresponded with something that men believed.
In conclusion, we may ask what Lucian of Samosata and Diogenes of Oinoanda had to offer to Aristides and Pausanias and Apuleius; and what they in turn could suggest to men whose concern in religion goes deeper than the cure of physical disease, trance and self-conscious revelling in ceremony. Some spiritual value still clung about the old religion, or it could not have found supporters in a Plotinus and a Porphyry, but (to quote again a most helpful question) "how much else?"
Chapter VII Footnotes:
[1] On the other hand see a very interesting passage in Tertullian, de Anima, 30, on the progress of the world in civilization, and population outstripping Nature, while plague, famine, war, etc., are looked on as tonsura insolescentis generis humani.
[2] Marcus Aurelius was born about 121 A.D. and died in 180. The other two were born in or about 125.
[3] e.g. viii, 17.
[4] The one passage is in xi, 3.
[5] Or, the English equivalent, Utopia.
[6] Marcus Aurelius, ix, 28-40, with omissions. Phrases have been borrowed from the translations of Mr Long and Dr Rendall.
[7] This sheds some light on his comparison of the Christians to actors, xi, 3.
[8] Cf. Tertullian, Apol. 5, Hadrianus omnium curiositatum explorator.
[9] Piscator, 19.
[10] Quomodo historia, 24.
[11] Bis accusatus, 27.
[12] Somnium, 18.
[13] Bis Accusatus, 30, 27.
[14] Apology, 15.
[15] Bis Acc. 32. Cf. Juvenal, 7, 151, perimit sævos classis numerosa tyrannos.
[16] Bis Acc. 33, 34.
[17] Zeus Tragadus, 15.
[18] Piscator, 19, 20.
[19] Vit. auctio, 27.
[20] Hermot. 74.
[21] Ibid. 85.
[22] Hermot. 22-28.
[23] Ibid. 84.
[24] V.H., ii, 18.
[25] Piscator, 16.
[26] Philopseudes, 7.
[27] Ibid. 16.
[28] This ghost appears rather earlier in a letter of Pliny's, vii, 27, who says he believes the story and adds another of his own.
[29] Philopseudes, 34.
[30] Ibid. 17.
[31] Pausanias, viii, 29, 3. Cf. Milton's Ode on Nativity, 25, "Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine." References to remains of giants, in Tertullian, de resurr. carnis, 42; Pliny, N.H. vii, 16, 73.
[32] Philopseudes, 22-24.
[33] Philopseudes, 25, 26.
[34] Icaromenippus, 24-26.
[35] Icaromen. 24.
[36] Zeus Tragadus.
[37] Zeus Elenchomenos.
[38] Deor. Eccles. 14-18.
[39] Alexander, 48. The reader of Marcus will remember that his first book is dated "Among the Quadi."
[40] Alexander, 53-56.
[41] Keim, Celsus' Wahres Wort, p. 233, suggests that Lucian was not quite clear as to the differences between Judaism and Christianity. The reference to forbidden meat lends colour to this.
[42] De morte Peregrini, 11, 16; cf. the Passio Perpetuæ, 3 and 16, on attention to Christians in prison. Tertullian, de Jejunio, 12, gives an extraordinary account of what might be done for a Christian in prison, though the case of Pristinus, which he quotes, must have been unusual, if we are to take all he says as literally true.
[43] Cf. Tertullian, ad Martyras, 4, Peregrinus qui non olim se rogo immisit. Athenagoras, Presb. 26, Próteôs, toûton d' ouk agnoeîte rhípsanta heautòn eis tò pûr perì tèn Olympían.
[44] Gellius, N.A. xii, 11; and summary of viii, 3.
[45] Charon is the title of the dialogue.
[46] Menippus, 15, 16.
[47] Menippus, 21.
[48] Eckermann, 25th Dec. 1825.
[49] Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, i, 25-30.
[50] See Rheinisches Museum, 1892, and Bulletin de Correspondance Hellènique, 1897.
[51] C.I.G. iv, 955. Translation of Mary Hamilton, in her Incubation, p. 41 (1906).
[52] I agree with the view of Schubart quoted by J. G. Frazer on the passage (Pausan. ii, 27, 6) that this man was neither the Emperor Antoninus Pius nor Marcus. It is perhaps superfluous to call attention to the value of Dr Frazer's commentary, here and elsewhere.
[53] Sacred Speech, ii, § 47, p 301, lítras eíkosi kaì ekatón.
[54] Sacred Speech, ii, § 33, p. 298. For Aristides see Hamilton, Incubation, pt. i. ch. 3, and Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, bk. iv. ch. 1. See also Richard Caton, M.D., The Temples and Ritual of Asklepios (1900).
[55] Paus. iii, 15, 11
[56] Paus. viii, 42, 11.
[57] Paus. i, 37, 4; 38, 7.
[58] Paus. x, 4, 4; they smell very like human flesh.
[59] Paus. ix, 40, 11.
[60] Paus. i, 34, 3. Cf. Tertullian, de Anima, 46, a list of dream-oracles. Strabo, c. 761-2, represents the practice as an essential feature of Judaism, egkoimâsthai dè kaì autoùs hypèr heautôn kaì humèr tôn állôn allous toùs euoneípous; he compares Moses to Amphiaraus, Trophonius, Orpheus, etc.
[61] Paus. ix, 39, 5-14, Frazer's translation.
[62] Paus. viii, 8, 3 (Frazer). tôn mèn dè es tò theîon hekónton toîs eirêuenois chrêsómetha.
[63] The word of Luke 2, 9.
[64] Artemidorus Dald. ii, 70.
[65] Artem. Dald. iii, 66.
[66] Marcus, i, 17; George Long's rendering, here as elsewhere somewhat literal, but valuable as leaving the sharp edges on the thought of the Greek, which get rubbed off in some translations. See Tertullian, de Anima, cc. 44 and following, for a discussion of dreams, referring to the five volumes of Hermippus of Berytus for the whole story of them.
[67] Artem. Dald. ii, pref., mega phrono.
[68] Artem. Dald. ii, 70. Cf. v. pref., aneu skenês kaì tragôsías.
[69] Artem. Dald. i, pref.
[70] A very different classification in Tertullian, de Anima, 47, 48. Dreams may be due to demons, to God, the nature of the soul or ecstasy.
[71] Artem. Dald. i, 4.
[72] Artem. Dald. iv, pref.
[73] See Augustine, C.D. xviii, 18, Apuleius in libris quos Asini aurei titulo inscripsit. In the printed texts, it is generally called the Metamorphoses.
[74] Apol. 24.
[75] Apol. 23.
[76] Apol. 72; Flor. 18.
[77] Flor. 20.
[78] Apol. 98. Cf. Passio Perpetuæ, c. 13, et cæpit Pirpetua Græce cum eis loqui, says Saturus; Perpetua uses occasional Greek words herself in recording her visions.
[79] Apol. 43. Cf. Plutarch cited on p. 101.
[80] Apol. 55, 56. Cf. Florida, 1, an ornamental passage on pious usage.
[81] Apol. 90. Many restorations have been attempted.
[82] e.g. Tertullian, de Anima, 57, Ostanes et Typhon et Dardanus et Damigeron et Nectabis et Berenice.
[83] Much of this material Apuleius has taken from the Timaeus, 40 D to 43 A.
[84] Cf. Lactantius, Instit. ii, de origine erroris, c. 5. Tertullian, ad Natt. ii, 2. Cicero, N.D. ii, 15, 39-44.
[85] de deo Socr. 3, 124. Cf. the account (quoted below) of what was experienced in initiation, which suggests some acquaintance with mystical trance—the confines of death and the sudden bright light look very like it.
[86] de deo Socr. 4, 126.
[87] de deo Socr. 5, 130-132.
[88] de deo Socr. 6, 132. Cf. Tert. Apol. 22, 23, 24, on nature and works of demons, on lines closely similar.
[89] de deo Socr. 7, 136.
[90] See chapter vi. p. 188.
[91] de deo Socr. 11, 144.
[92] de deo Socr. 15.
[93] The story of Lamachus "our high-souled leader," now "buried in the entire element," would make anyone wish to become a brigand, Sainte-Beuve said. Here one must regretfully omit the robbers' cave altogether.
[94] Metam. xi, 3, 4. Apuleius had a fancy for flowing hair.
[95] Metam. xi, 5.
[96] Metam. xi. 8 ff.
[97] Metam. xi, 15, da nomen santæ huic militiæ cuius ... sacramento, etc.
[98] Tertullian remarks that pagan rituals, unlike Christian baptism, owe much to pomp and expense; de Bapt. 2. Mentior si non e contrario idolorum sollemnia vel arcana de suggestu et apparatu deque sumptu fidem et auctoritatem sibi extruunt.
[99] Augustine, C.D. xviii, 18; and cf. ib. viii, (on the de deo Socr.); and Lactantius, v. 3.
[100] Capitolinus v. Albini, 12.
CHAPTER VIII
CELSUS
Deliquit, opinor, divina doctrina ex Judæa potius quam ex Græcia oriens. Erravit et Christus piscatores citius quam sophistam ad præconium emittens,—TERTULLIAN, de Anima, 3.
At the beginning of the last chapter reference was made to the spread of Christianity in the second century, and then a brief survey was given of the position of the old religion without reference to the new. When one realizes the different habits of mind represented by the men there considered, the difficulties with which Christianity had to contend become more evident and more intelligible. Lucian generally ignored it, only noticing it to laugh at its folly and to pass on—it was too inconspicuous to be worth attack. To the others—the devout of the old religion, whose fondest thoughts were for the past, and for whom religion was largely a ritual, sanctified by tradition and by fancy,—the Christian faith offered little beyond the negation of all they counted dear. We are happily in possession of fragments of an anti-Christian work of the day, written by a man philosophic and academic in temperament, but sympathetic with the followers of the religion of his fathers—fragments only, but enough to show how Christianity at once provoked the laughter, incensed the patriotism, and offended the religious tastes of educated people.
It was for a man called Celsus that Lucian wrote his book upon the prophet Alexander and his shrine at Abonoteichos, and it has been suggested that Lucian's friend and the Celsus, who wrote the famous True Word, may have been one and the same. The evidence is carefully worked out by Keim,[1] but it is not very strong, especially as some two dozen men of the name are known to the historians of the first three centuries of our era. Origen himself knew little of Celsus—hardly more than we can gather from the quotations he made from the book in refuting it. From a close study of his occasional hints at contemporary history, Keim puts Celsus' book down to the latter part of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, or, more closely, to the year 178 A.D.[2] Celsus' general references to Christianity and to paganism imply that period. He writes under the pressure of the barbarian inroads on the Northern frontier, of the Parthians in the East and of the great plague. His main concern is the Roman State, shaken by all these misfortunes, and doubly threatened by the passive disaffection of Christians within its borders.[3] From what Turk and Mongol meant to Europe in the Middle Ages and may yet mean to us, we may divine how men of culture and patriotism felt about the white savages coming down upon them from the North.
Of the personal history of Celsus nothing can be said, but the features of his mind are well-marked. He was above all a man of culture,—candid, scholarly and cool. He knew and admired the philosophical writings of ancient Greece, he had some knowledge of Egypt, and he also took the pains to read the books of the Jews and the Christians. On the whole he leant to Plato, but, like many philosophic spirits, he found destructive criticism more easy than the elaboration of a system of his own. Yet here we must use caution, for the object he had set before him was not to be served by individual speculation. It was immaterial what private opinions he might hold, for his great purpose was the abandonment of particularism and the fusion of all parties for the general good. Private judgment run mad was the mark of all Christians, orthodox and heretical,—"men walling themselves off and isolating themselves from mankind"[4]—and his thesis was that the whole spirit of the movement was wrong. A good citizen's part was loyal acceptance of the common belief, deviation from which was now shown to impair the solidarity of the civilized world. Of course such a position is never taken by really independent thinkers; but it is the normal standpoint of men to whom practical affairs are of more moment than speculative precision—men, who are at bottom sceptical, and have little interest in problems which they have given up as insoluble. Celsus was satisfied with the established order, alike in the regions of thought and of government. He mistrusted new movements—not least when they were so conspicuously alien to the Greek mind as the new superstition that came from Palestine. He has all the ancient contempt of the Greek for the barbarian, and, while he is influenced by the high motive of care for the State, there are traces of irritation in his tone which speak of personal feeling. The folly of the movement provoked him.
The Christian propaganda
This, he says, is the language of the Christians: "'Let no cultured person draw near, none wise, none sensible; for all that kind of thing we count evil; but if any man is ignorant, if any is wanting in sense and culture, if any is a fool, let him come boldly.' Such people they spontaneously avow to be worthy of their God; and, so doing, they show that it is only the simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves and women-folk and children, whom they wish to persuade, or can persuade."[5] Those who summon men to the other initiations (teletàs), and offer purification from sins, proclaim: "Whosoever has clean hands and is wise of speech," or "Whosoever is pure from defilement, whose soul is conscious of no guilt, who has lived well and righteously." "But let us hear what sort these people invite; 'Whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent, or a fool, in a word, whosoever is god-forsaken (kakodaímôn), him the kingdom of God will receive.' Now whom do you mean by the sinner but the wicked, thief, house-breaker, poisoner, temple-robber, grave-robber? Whom else would a brigand invite to join him?"[6] But the Christian propaganda is still more odious. "We see them in our own houses, wool dressers, cobblers, and fullers, the most uneducated and vulgar persons, not daring to say a word in the presence of their masters who are older and wiser; but when they get hold of the children in private, and silly women with them, they are wonderfully eloquent,—to the effect that the children must not listen to their father, but believe them and be taught by them; ... that they alone know how to live, and if the children will listen to them, they will be happy themselves, and will make their home blessed. But if, while they are speaking, they see some of the children's teachers, some wiser person or their Father coming, the more cautious of them will be gone in a moment, and the more impudent will egg on the children to throw off the reins—whispering to them that, while their father or their teachers are about, they will not and cannot teach them anything good ... they must come with the women, and the little children that play with them, to the women's quarters, or the cobbler's shop, or the fuller's, to receive perfect knowledge. And that is how they persuade them."[7] They are like quacks who warn men against the doctor—"take care that none of you touches Science (epistéue); Science is a bad thing; knowledge (gnôsis) makes men fall from health of soul."[8] They will not argue about what they believe—"they always bring in their 'Do not examine, but believe,' and 'Thy faith shall save thee'"[9]—"believe that he, whom I set forth to you, is the son of God, even though he was bound in the most dishonourable way, and punished in the most shameful, though yesterday or the day before he weltered in the most disgraceful fashion before the eyes of all men—so much the more believe!"[10] So far all the Christian sects are at one.
And the absurdity of it! "Why was he not sent to the sinless as well as to sinners? What harm is there in not having sinned?"[11] Listen to them! "The unjust, if he humble himself from his iniquity, God will receive; but the just, if he look up to Him with virtue from beginning to end, him He will not receive."[12] Celsus' own view is very different—"It must be clear to everybody, I should think, that those, who are sinners by nature and training, none could change, not even by punishment—to say nothing of doing it by pity! For to change nature completely is very difficult; and those who have not sinned are better partners in life."[13] Christians in fact make God into a sentimentalist—"the slave of pity for those who mourn"[14] to the point of injustice.
The ecclesia of worms
Jews and Christians seem to Celsus "like a swarm of bats—or ants creeping out of their nest—or frogs holding a symposium round a swamp—or worms in conventicle (ekklesiáxiousi) in a corner of the mud[15]—debating which of them are the more sinful, and saying 'God reveals all things to us beforehand and gives us warning; he forsakes the whole universe and the course of the heavenly spheres, and all this great earth he neglects, to dwell with us alone; to us alone he despatches heralds, and never ceases to send and to seek how we may dwell with him for ever.'" "God is," say the worms, "and after him come we, brought into being by him (hup' autoû gegonótes), in all things like unto God; and to us all things are subjected, earth and water and air and stars; for our sake all things are, and to serve us they are appointed." "Some of us," continue the worms ("he means us," says Origen)—"some of us sin, so God will come, or else he will send his son, that he may burn up the unrighteous, and that the rest of us may have eternal life with him."[16]
The radical error in Jewish, and Christian thinking is that it is anthropocentric. They say that God made all things for man,[17] but this is not at all evident. What we know of the world suggests that it is not more for the sake of man than of the irrational animals that all things were made. Plants and trees and grass and thorns—do they grow for man a whit more than for the wildest animals? "'Sun and night serve mortals,' says Euripides—but why us more than the ants or the flies? For them, too, night comes for rest, and day for sight and work." If men hunt and eat animals, they in their turn hunt and eat men; and before towns and communities were formed, and tools and weapons made, man's supremacy was even more questionable. "In no way is man better in God's sight than ants and bees" (iv. 81). The political instinct of man is shared by both these creatures—they have constitutions, cities, wars and victories, and trials at law—as the drones know. Ants have sense enough to secure their corn stores from sprouting: they have graveyards; they can tell one another which way to go—thus they have lógos and ennoiai like men. If one looked from heaven, would there be any marked difference between the procedures of men and of ants?[18] But man has an intellectual affinity with God; the human mind conceives thoughts that are essentially divine (theías ennoías).[19] Many animals can make the same claim—"what could one call more divine than to foreknow and foretell the future? And this men learn from the other animals and most of all from birds;" and if this comes from God, "so much nearer divine intercourse do they seem by nature than we, wiser and more dear to God." Thus "all things were not made for man, just as they were not made for the lion, nor the eagle, nor the dolphin, but that the universe as a work of God might be complete and perfect in every part. It is for this cause that the proportions of all things are designed, not for one another (except incidentally) but for the whole. God's care is for the whole, and this Providence never neglects. The whole does not grow worse, nor does God periodically turn it to himself. He is not angry on account of men, just as he is not angry because of monkeys or flies; nor does he threaten the things, each of which in measure has its portion of himself."[20]
The God of the philosophers
Celsus held that Christians spoke of God in a way that was neither holy nor guiltless (ouch hosíôs oud' euagôs, iv, 10); and he hinted that they did it to astonish ignorant listeners.[21] For himself, he was impressed with the thought, which Plato has in the Timæus,—a sentence that sums up what many of the most serious and religious natures have felt and will always feel to be profoundly true: "The maker and father of this whole fabric it is hard to find, and, when one has found him, it is impossible to speak of him to all men."[22] Like the men of his day, a true and deep instinct led him to point back to "inspired poets, wise men and philosophers," and to Plato "a more living (energesteron) teacher of theology"[23]—"though I should be surprised if you are able to follow him, seeing that you are utterly bound up in the flesh and see nothing clearly."[24] What the sages tell him of God, he proceeds to set forth.
"Being and becoming, one is intelligible, the other visible, (noetòn, horatòn). Being is the sphere of truth; becoming, of error. Truth is the subject of knowledge; the other of opinion. Thought deals with the intelligible; sight with the visible. The mind recognizes the intelligible, the eye the visible.
"What then the Sun is among things visible,—neither eye, nor sight—yet to the eye the cause of its seeing, to sight the cause of its existing (synístathai) by his means, to things visible the cause of their being seen, to all things endowed with sensation the cause of their existence (gínesthai) and indeed the cause himself of himself being seen; this HE is among things intelligible (noetà), who is neither mind, nor thought, nor knowledge, but to the mind the cause of thinking, to thought of its being by his means, to knowledge of our knowing by his means, to all things intelligible, to truth itself, and to being itself, the cause that they are—out beyond all things (pántôn epékeina òn), intelligible only by some unspeakable faculty.
"So have spoken men of mind; and if you can understand anything of it, it is well for you. If you suppose a spirit descends from God to proclaim divine matters, it would be the spirit that proclaims this, that spirit with which men of old were filled and in consequence announced much that was good. But if you can take in nothing of it, be silent and hide your own ignorance, and do not say that those who see are blind, and those who run are lame, especially when you yourselves are utterly crippled and mutilated in soul, and live in the body—that is to say, in the dead element."[25]
Origen says that Celsus is constantly guilty of tautology, and the reiteration of this charge of ignorance and want of culture is at least frequent enough. Yet if the Christian movement had been confined to people as vulgar and illiterate as he suggests, he might not have thought it worth his while to attack the new religion. His hint of the propagation of the Gospel by slaves in great houses, taken with the names of men of learning and position, whom we know to have been converted, shows the seriousness of the case. But to avoid the further charge which Origen brings against Celsus of "mixing everything up," it will be better to pursue Celsus' thoughts of God.
"I say nothing new, but what seemed true of old (pálai dedogména). God is good, and beautiful, and happy, and is in that which is most beautiful and best. If then he 'descends to men,' it involves change for him, and change from good to bad, from beautiful to ugly, from happiness to unhappiness, from what is best to what is worst. Who would choose such a change? For mortality it is only nature to alter and be changed; but for the immortal to abide the same forever. God would not accept such a change."[26] He presents a dilemma to the Christians; "Either God really changes, as they say, to a mortal body,—and it has been shown that this is impossible; or he himself does not change, but he makes those who see suppose so, and thus deceives and cheats them. Deceit and lying are evil, taken generally, though in the single case of medicine one might use them in healing friends who are sick or mad—or against enemies in trying to escape danger. But none who is sick or mad is a friend of God's; nor is God afraid of any one, so that he should use deceit to escape danger."[27] God in fact "made nothing mortal; but God's works are such things as are immortal, and they have made the mortal. The soul is God's work, but the nature of the body is different, and in this respect there is no difference between the bodies of bat, worm, frog, and man. The matter is the same and the corruptible part is alike."[28]
God's anger
The Christian conception of the "descent of God" is repulsive to Celsus, for it means contact with matter. "God's anger," too, is an impious idea, for anger is a passion; and Celsus makes havoc of the Old Testament passages where God is spoken of as having human passions (anthrôpopathés), closing with an argumentum ad hominem—"Is it not absurd that a man [Titus], angry with the Jews, slew all their youth and burnt their land, and so they came to nothing; but God Almighty, as they say, angry and vexed and threatening, sends his son and endures such things as they tell?"[29] Furthermore, the Christian account of God's anger at man's sin involves a presumption that Christians really know what evil is. "Now the origin of evil is not to be easily known by one who has no philosophy. It is enough to tell the common people that evil is not from God, but is inherent in matter, and is a fellow-citizen (empoliteúetai) of mortality. The circuit of mortal things is from beginning to end the same, and in the appointed circles the same must always of necessity have been and be and be again."[30] "Nor could the good or evil elements in mortal things become either less or greater. God does not need to restore all things anew. God is not like a man, that, because he has faultily contrived or executed without skill, he should try to amend the world."[31] In short, "even if a thing seems to you to be bad, it is not yet clear that it is bad; for you do not know what is of advantage to yourself, or to another, or to the whole."[32] Besides would God need to descend in order to learn what was going on among men?[33] Or was he dissatisfied with the attention he received, and did he really come down to show off like a nouveau riche (oi neóploutoi)?"[34] Then why not long before?[35]
Should Christians ask him how God is to be seen, he has his answer: "If you will be blind to sense and see with the mind, if you will turn from the flesh and waken the eyes of the soul, thus and thus only shall you see God."[36] In words that Origen approves, he says, "from God we must never and in no way depart, neither by day nor by night, in public or in private, in every word and work perpetually, but, with these and without, let the soul ever be strained towards God."[37] "If any man bid you, in the worship of God, either to do impiety, or to say anything base, you must never be persuaded by him. Rather endure every torture and submit to every death, than think anything unholy of God, let alone say it."[38]
Thus the fundamental conceptions of the Christians are shown to be wrong, but more remains to be done. Let us assume for purposes of discussion that there could be a "descent of God"—would it be what the Christians say it was? "God is great and hard to be seen," he makes the Christian say, "so he put his own spirit into a body like ours and sent it down here that we might hear and learn from it."[39] If that is true, he says, then God's son cannot be immortal, since the nature of a spirit is not such as to be permanent; nor could Jesus have risen again in the body, "for God would not have received back the spirit which he gave when it was polluted with the nature of the body."[40] "If he had wished to send down a spirit from himself, why did he need to breathe it into the womb of a woman? He knew already how to make men, and he could have fashioned a body about this spirit too, and so avoided putting his own spirit into such pollution."[41] Again the body, in which the spirit was sent, ought to have had stature or beauty or terror or persuasion, whereas they say it was little, ugly and ignoble.[42]
Then, finally, "suppose that God, like Zeus in the Comedy, waking out of long sleep, determined to rescue mankind from evil, why on earth did he send this spirit (as you call it) into one particular corner? He ought to have breathed through many bodies in the same way and sent them all over the world. The comic poet, to make merriment in the theatre, describes how Zeus waked up and sent Hermes to the Athenians and Lacedæmonians; do you not think that your invention of God's son being sent to the Jews is more laughable still?"[43] The incarnation further carried with it stories of "God eating"—mutton, vinegar, gall. This revolted Celsus, and he summed it all up in one horrible word.[44]
The ignominy of Jesus
The ignominy of the life of Jesus was evidence to Celsus of the falsity of his claim to be God's son. He bitterly taunts Christians with following a child of shame—"God's would not be a body like yours—nor begotten as you were begotten, Jesus!"[45] He reviles Jesus for the Passion—"unhelped by his Father and unable to help himself."[46] He goes to the Gospels ("I know the whole story," he says[47]) and he cites incident after incident. He reproaches Jesus with seeking to escape the cross,[48] he brings forward "the men who mocked him and put the purple robe on him, the crown of thorns, and; the reed in his hand";[49] he taunts him with being unable to endure his thirst upon the cross—"which many a common man will endure."[50] As to the resurrection, "if Jesus wished really to display his divine power, he ought to have appeared to the actual men who reviled him, and to him who condemned him and to all, for, of course, he was no longer afraid of any man, seeing he was dead, and, as you say, God, and was not originally sent to elude observation."[51] Or, better still, to show his Godhead, he might have vanished from the gibbet.[52]
What befel Jesus, befals his followers. "Don't you see, my dear sir?" Celsus says, "a man may stand and blaspheme your dæmon; and not that only, he may forbid him land and sea, and then lay hands on you, who are consecrated to him like a statue, bind you, march you off and impale you; and the dæmon, or, as you say, the son of God, does not help you."[53] "You may stand and revile the statues of the gods and laugh. But if you tried it in the actual presence of Dionysus or Herakles, you might not get off so comfortably. But your god in his own person they spread out and punished, and those who did it have suffered nothing.... He too who sent his son (according to you) with some message or other, looked on and saw him thus cruelly punished, so that the message perished with him, and though all this time has passed he has never heeded. What father was ever so unnatural (anósios)? Ah! but perhaps he wished it, you say, and that was why he endured the insult. And perhaps our gods wish it too, when you blaspheme them."[54]
Celsus would seem to have heard Christian preaching, for beside deriding "Only believe" and "Thy faith will save thee," he is offended by the language they use about the cross. "Wide as the sects stand apart, and bitter as are their quarrels and mutual abuse, you will hear them all say their 'To me the world is crucified and I to the world.'"[55] In one great passage he mixes, as Origen says, the things he has mis-heard, and quotes Christian utterances about "a soul that lives, and a heaven that is slain that it may live, and earth slain with the sword, and ever so many people being slain to live; and death taking a rest in the world when the sin of the world dies; and then a narrow way down, and gates that open of themselves. And everywhere you have the tree of life and the resurrection of the flesh from the tree—I suppose, because their teacher was nailed to a cross and was a carpenter by trade. Exactly as, if he had chanced to be thrown down a precipice, or pushed into a pit, or choked in a noose, or if he had been a cobbler, or a stone-mason, or a blacksmith, there would have been above the heavens a precipice of life, or a pit of resurrection, or a rope of immortality, or a happy stone, or the iron of love, or the holy hide."[56]
The Cross and the miracles
The miracles of Jesus Celsus easily explains. "Through poverty he went to Egypt and worked there as a hired labourer; and there he became acquainted with certain powers [or faculties], on which the Egyptians pride themselves, and he came back holding his head high on account of them, and because of them he announced that he was God."[57] But, granting the miracles of healing and of raising the dead and feeding the multitudes, he maintains that ordinary quacks will do greater miracles in the streets for an obol or two, "driving devils out of men,[58] and blowing away diseases and calling up the souls of heroes, and displaying sumptuous banquets and tables and sweetmeats and dainties that are not there;"—"must we count them sons of God?"[59] There are plenty of prophets too, "and it is quite an easy and ordinary thing for each of them to say 'I am God—or God's son—or a divine spirit. And I am come; for already the world perisheth, and ye, oh men, are lost for your sins. But I am willing to save you; and ye shall see me hereafter coming with heavenly power. Blessed is he that has worshipped me now; but upon all the rest I will send eternal fire, and upon their cities and lands. And men who do not recognize their own guilt shall repent in vain with groans; and them that have believed me, I will guard for ever.'"[60] Jesus was, he holds, an obvious quack and impostor. In fact, there is little to choose between worshipping Jesus and Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, who had actually been deified in Egypt.[61]