No More Learning

" And Celsus
concludes with observing that "such assertions would be more tolerable
if they were made by earthworms or frogs, than by Jews or Christians
contending with each other. "

Celsus, after having adduced, from the writings of the heathens,
instances of those who contended for the antiquity of their race, such
as the Athenians, Egyptians, Arcadians, and Phrygians, and also of those
who have asserted that some among them were aborigines, says, that
"the Jews being concealed in a corner of Palestine, men perfectly
in-erudite, and who never had previously heard the same things
celebrated by Hesiod and innumerable

. . . Epistle I. of Pope's Essay on Man, in which Pride is
represented as saying:

"For me kind nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower;
Annual for me the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectarious and the balmy dew.
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings:
For me health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise,
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies. "

{27}

other divine men, composed a most incredible and inelegant narration,
that a certain man was fashioned by the hands of God, and inspired by
him with the breath of life; that a woman was taken from the side of
the man; that precepts were given to them by God; and that a serpent was
adverse to these precepts. Lastly, they make the serpent to frustrate
the commands of God: in all this, narrating a certain fable worthy only
of being told by old women, and which most impiously makes God to be
from the first imbecile, and incapable of persuading one man fashioned
by himself to act in a way conformable to his will.

"The Christians are most impiously deceived and involved in error,
through the greatest ignorance of the meaning of divine enigmas. For
they make a certain being whom they call the Devil, and who in the
Hebrew tongue is denominated Satan, hostile to God. It is therefore
perfectly stupid and unholy to assert that the greatest God, wishing to
benefit mankind, was incapable of accomplishing what he wished, through
having one that opposed him, and acted contrary to his will. The son of
God, therefore, was vanquished by the devil; and being punished by him,
teaches us also to despise the punishments inflicted by him; Christ at
the same time predicting that Satan would appear on

{28}

the earth, and, like himself, would exhibit great and admirable works,
usurping to himself the glory of God. The son of God also adds, that it
is not fit to pay attention to Satan, because he is a seducer, but
that himself alone is worthy of belief. This, however, is evidently the
language of a man who is an impostor earnestly endeavouring to prevent,
and previously guarding himself against, the attempts of those who think
differently from and oppose him.
But, according to the Christians, the
son of God is punished by the devil, who also punishes us in order
that through this we may be exercised in endurance. These assertions,
however, are perfectly ridiculous. For it is fit, I think, that the
devil should be punished, and not that men should be threatened with
punishment who are calumniated by him.

"Further still: If God, like Jupiter in the comedy, being roused from
a long sleep, wished to liberate the human race from evils, why did
he send only into a corner of the earth this spirit of whom you boast?
though he ought in a similar manner to have animated many other bodies,
and to have sent them to every part of the habitable globe. The comic
poet indeed, in order to excite the laughter of the audience in the
theatre, says that Jupiter, after he was roused from his sleep, sent
Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedæmonsians:--but do not

{29}

you think that it is a much more ridiculous fiction to assert that God
sent his son to the Jews?

"Many--and these, men whose names are not known,--both in temples and
out of temples, and some also assembling in cities or armies, are easily
excited from any casual cause, as if they possessed a prophetic power.
Each of these likewise is readily accustomed to say, 'I am God, or the
son of God, or a divine spirit. But I came because the world will soon
be destroyed, and you, O men! on account of your iniquities will perish.
I wish, however, to save you, and you shall again see me, returning with
a celestial army. Blessed is he who now worships me; but I will cast
all those who do not, into eternal fire, together with the cities and
regions to which they belong. Those men also that do not now know the
punishments which are reserved for them, shall afterwards repent and
lament in vain: but those who believe in me I will for ever save. '
Extending to the multitude these insane and perfectly obscure
assertions, the meaning of which no intelligent man is able to
discover,--for they are unintelligible and a mere nothing,--they afford
an occasion to the stupid and to jugglers of giving to them whatever
interpretation they please.

"Again, they do not consider, if the prophets of

{30}

the God of the Jews had predicted that this would be his son, why did
this God legislatively ordain through Moses, that the Jews should enrich
themselves and acquire power; should fill the earth with their progeny;
and should slay and cut off the whole race of their enemies, which Moses
did, as he says, in the sight of the Jews; and besides this, threatening
that unless they were obedient to these his commands, he should consider
them as his enemies;--why, after these things had been promulgated by
God, did his son, a Nazarean man, exclude from any access to his father,
the rich and powerful, the wise and renowned? For he says that we ought
to pay no more attention than ravens do, to food and the necessaries of
life*, and that we should be less concerned about our clothing than the
lilies of the field.