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| Chapter XI
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Chapter
XI.
After this Celsus continues: “If these
(meaning the Christians) bring forward this person, and others, again,
a different individual (as the Christ), while the common and ready
cry4332
| 4332 κοινὸν δὲ
πάντων ἢ καὶ
πρόχειρον.
For ἢ, Boherellus reads
ᾖ. | of all parties is, ‘Believe, if thou
wilt be saved, or else begone,’ what shall those do who are in
earnest about their salvation? Shall they cast the dice, in order
to divine whither they may betake themselves, and whom they shall
join?” Now we shall answer this objection in the following
manner, as the clearness of the case impels us to do. If it had
been recorded that several individuals had appeared in human life as
sons of God in the manner in which Jesus did, and if each of them had
drawn a party of adherents to his side, so that, on account of the
similarity of the profession (in the case of each individual) that he
was the Son of God, he to whom his followers bore testimony to that
effect was an object of dispute, there would have been ground for his
saying, “If these bring forward this person, and others a
different individual, while the common and ready cry of all parties is,
‘Believe, if thou wilt be saved, or else begone,’”
and so on; whereas it has been proclaimed to the entire world that
Jesus Christ is the only Son of God who visited the human race:
for those who, like Celsus, have supposed that (the acts of Jesus) were
a series of prodigies,4333
| 4333 οἱ γὰρ
ὁμοίως Κελσῷ
ὑπολαβόντες
τετερατεῦσθαι.
The word ὁμοίως formerly stood, in
the text of Spencer and Ruæus, before τετερατεῦθαι,
but is properly expunged, as arising from the preceding ὁμοίως. Boherellus
remarks: “Forte aliud quid exciderit, verbi gratiâ,
τὰ τοῦ
Ιησοῦ.” | and who for that
reason wished to perform acts of the same kind,4334
that they, too, might gain a similar mastery over the minds of men,
were convicted of being utter nonentities.4335
Such were Simon, the Magus of Samaria,
and Dositheus, who was a native of the same place; since the former
gave out that he was the power of God that is called great,4336
and the latter that he was the Son of
God. Now Simonians are found nowhere throughout the world; and
yet, in order to gain over to himself many followers, Simon freed his
disciples from the danger of death, which the Christians were taught to
prefer, by teaching them to regard idolatry as a matter of
indifference. But even at the beginning of their existence the
followers of Simon were not exposed to persecution. For that
wicked demon who was conspiring against the doctrine of Jesus, was well
aware that none of his own maxims would be weakened by the teaching of
Simon. The Dositheans, again, even in former times, did not rise
to any eminence, and now they are completely extinguished, so that it
is said their whole number does not amount to thirty. Judas of
Galilee also, as Luke relates in the Acts of the Apostles,4337
wished to call himself some great personage,
as did Theudas before him; but as their doctrine was not of God, they
were destroyed, and all who obeyed them were immediately
dispersed. We do not, then, “cast the dice in order to
divine whither we shall betake ourselves, and whom we shall
join,” as if there were many claimants able to draw us after them
by the profession of their having come down from God to visit the human
race. On these points, however, we have said
enough.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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