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| Chapter XLIV
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Chapter
XLIV.
After these points Celsus quotes some objections against
the doctrine of Jesus, made by a very few individuals who are
considered Christians, not of the more intelligent, as he supposes, but
of the more ignorant class, and asserts that “the following are
the rules laid down by them. Let no one come to us who has been
instructed, or who is wise or
prudent (for such qualifications are deemed evil by us); but if there
be any ignorant, or unintelligent, or uninstructed, or foolish persons,
let them come with confidence. By which words, acknowledging that
such individuals are worthy of their God, they manifestly show that
they desire and are able to gain over only the silly, and the mean, and
the stupid, with women and children.”3570
| 3570 [The sarcastic
raillery of Celsus in regard to the ignorance and low social scale of
the early converts to Christianity is in keeping with his whole tone
and manner. On the special value of the evidence of early
Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr , Clement, Origen, etc., to
the truth and power, among men of all classes, of the Gospel of our
Lord, see Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, The Historical
Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records, Lect. viii. pp.
207, 420, et seqq. (Amer. ed. 1860). S.] | In reply to which, we say that, as if,
while Jesus teaches continence, and says, “Whosoever looketh upon
a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in
his heart,” one were to behold a few of those who are deemed to
be Christians living licentiously, he would most justly blame them for
living contrary to the teaching of Jesus, but would act most
unreasonably if he were to charge the Gospel with their censurable
conduct; so, if he found nevertheless that the doctrine of the
Christians invites men to wisdom, the blame then must remain with those
who rest in their own ignorance, and who utter, not what Celsus relates
(for although some of them are simple and ignorant, they do not speak
so shamelessly as he alleges), but other things of much less serious
import, which, however, serve to turn aside men from the practice of
wisdom.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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