tal anguish, the sacred agony (ii, 24), is made the tab- ject of remarks characterized no less by coarseness of taste and unfairness, than to tlie Christian mind by ir- reverence. Instead of his heart being touched by the majesty of our Saviour's sorrow, Celsua only finds an argument against the divine character of the adorable sufferer (ii, 16). The wonders accompanying Christ's death are treated as legends (iii, 88) ; the resurrection regarded as an invention or an optical deln^on (ill, fiO, 66,67,78).
** After Celsus has thus made the Jew the means of a ruthless attack on Christianity, he himself directs a similar one against the Jewish religion itself (iii, 1 1 and elsewhere). He goes to the origin of their his- tory ; describes the Jews as having left Egypt in a se- dition (iii, § 6) ; as being true types of the Christuns in their andent fiujtiousness (iii, § 6) ; considers Moses to be only on a level with the early Greek legislators (i, 17, 18 ; i, 22) ; regards Jewish rites like circumcision to be borrowed flnom Egypt; charges anthropomor- phism on Jewish theology (iv, 71 ; vi, 62), and djeclines allowing the allegorical interpretetion in explanation of it (iv, 48) ; examines Jewish prophecy, parallds it with heathen oracles (vii, 8 ; viii, 46), and claims that the goodness, not the truth of a prophecy, ought to be considered (vii, 14) ; points to the ancient idola^ of I the Jews as proof that they were not better than other I nations (iv, 22, 28) ; and to the destruction of Jervs- j lem as proof that they were not special favorites of heaven. At last he arrives at their idea of creation (iv, 74 ; vi, 49, etc), and here reveals the* real ground of his antipathy. While he objects to details in tiie narrative, such as the mention of days before the ex- istence of the sun (vi, 60), his real hatred lb against the idea of the unity of God, and the freedom of Deity in the act of creation. It is the struggle of pantheism against theism.
" When Celsus has thus made use of the Jew to refute Christianity fh>m,the Jewish stand-point, and aftei^ wards refuted the Jew fh>m his own, he proceeds to make his own attack on Christianity ; in doing which, he first examines the lives of Christians Qii)^ and a^ terwards the Christian doctrine (v, vi, vii), tiius skil- fully prejudicing the mind of his readers against the persons before attacking the doctrines. He alludes to the quarrelsomeness shown in the various secta of Christians (iii, 10), and repeats the calumnious suspi- cion of disloyalty (iii, 6, 14), want of patriotism (^ § 66 ; viii, 7S\ and political uselesenese (viii, 69), and hence deiiends the public persecution of them (\-iU, 69). Filled with the esoteric pride of ancient philosophy, he reproaches the Christians with their careftilness to proselytise the poor (iii, 44, 60) and to^convert the vi- cious (iii, 69, 62, 74), thus unconsciously giving a no- ble testimony to one of the most divine features in our religion, and testifying to the preaching of the doc- trine of a Saviour for sinner?.
** Having thus defamed the Christians, he passes to the examination of the Christian doctrine, in its form, its method, and its substance. His esthetic sense, ruined with the idolatry of form, and unable to appre- ciate the thought, regards the Gospels as defective and rude through simplicity Qii, 66 ; viii, 87). The meth- od of Christian teaching also seems to him to be de- fective, as lacking philosophy and dialectic, and as de- nouncing the use of reason (vii, 9 ; i, 2 ; i, 9 ; iii, 89 ; vi, 10). Lastiy, he turns to the substince of the dog- mas themselves. He distinguishes two elements in them, the one of which, as bearing resemblance to pbi- loraphy or to heathen religion, he regards as incontest- ably true, but denies its originality, and endeavors to derive it from Persia or from Platonism (vi, 15 ; vi, 22, 68, 62 ; V, 68 ; vi, 1), resolving, for example, the wor- ship of a human being into the ordinary phenomenon of apotheosis (iii, 22 ; vii, 28-80). The other class of doctrines which he attacks as false consists of those which relate to creation (iv, 87 ; vi, 49), the incama-
CELStrS
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CELTIC RELIGION
tion (iv, 14 ; ▼, 2 ; vii, 86), the fall Or, 62, 70), redemp- tion (t, 14 ; TU, 28, 86 ; vi, 78), man's place in crea- tion ^v, 74, 76, 28), moral conversions (iii,B5), and the resnxrecdon of the dead (y, 14, 15). His point of view for criticising them is derived firom the fundamental dualism of the Platonic system ; the eternal severance of matter and mind, of God and the world ; and the reference of good to the region of mind, evil to that of matter. Thus, not content with his former attack on the idea of creation in discussion with the Jew, he re- tuns to the discossion from the philosophical side. His Platonism will not allow him to admit that the absolnte God, the first Cause, can have any contact with matter. It leads him also to give importance to the idea of ^ai/«ov£c» or divine mediators, by which the chasm is filled between the ideal god and the world (vii, 68 ; viiL [2-14] 85, 86), not b^ able otherwise to imagine the action of the pure ISda of Crod on a world of ma^er. Hence he blames Christians for at- tributing an evil nature to demons, and finds a reason- able interpretation of the heathen worship (viii, 2). The same dualist theory extinguishes the idea. of the incarnation aa a degradation of God ; and also the doc- trine of the fi&ll, inasmuch as psychological deteriora- tion is impossible if the soul be pure, and if evil be a necessary attribute of matter (iv, 99). With the fall redemption also disappears, because the perfect cannot admit of change; Christ*s coming could only be to correct what God already Iniew, or rectify what ought to have been corrected before (iv, 8, 7, 18). Further, Celsns argues, if Divinity did descend, that it would not assume so lowly a form as Jesus. The same rig- orous logic charges on Christianity the undue eleva* tion of man, as well as the abasement of Ciod. Celsus can neither admit man more than the brutes to be the final cause of the universe, nor allow the possibility of man^s nearness to God (iv, 74). His pantheism, destroying the barrier which separates the material from the moral, obliterates the perception of the fact tliat a single free responsible being may be of more . digni^ than the universe.**