But if it is on account of those opinions of the Christians and Jews
which displease Celsus (and which he does not at all appear to
understand) that they are to be regarded as worms and ants, and the rest
of mankind as different, let us examine the acknowledged opinions of
Christians and Jews,[564] and compare them with those of the rest of
mankind, and see whether it will not appear to those who have once
admitted that certain men are worms and ants, that _they_ are the worms
and ants and frogs who have fallen away from sound views of God, and,
under a vain appearance of piety,[565] worship either irrational
animals, or images, or other objects, the works of men’s hands;[566]
whereas, from the beauty of such, they ought to admire the Maker of
them, and worship Him: while those are indeed men, and more honourable
than men (if there be anything that is so), who, in obedience to their
reason, are able to ascend from stocks and stones,[567] nay, even from
what is reckoned the most precious of all matter—silver and gold; and
who ascend up also from the beautiful things in the world to the Maker
of all, and entrust themselves to Him who alone is able to satisfy[568]
all existing things, and to overlook the thoughts of all, and to hear
the prayers of all; who send up their prayers to Him, and do all things
as in the presence of Him who beholds everything, and who are careful,
as in the presence of the Hearer of all things, to say nothing which
might not with propriety be reported to God. Will not such piety as
this—which can be overcome neither by labours, nor by the dangers of
death, nor by logical plausibilities[569]—be of no avail in preventing
those who have obtained it from being any longer compared to worms, even
if they had been so represented before their assumption of a piety so
remarkable? Will they who subdue that fierce longing for sexual
pleasures which has reduced the souls of many to a weak and feeble
condition, and who subdue it because they are persuaded that they cannot
otherwise have communion with God, unless they ascend to Him through the
exercise of temperance, appear to you to be the brothers of worms, and
relatives of ants, and to bear a likeness to frogs? What! is the
brilliant quality of justice, which keeps inviolate the rights common to
our neighbour, and our kindred, and which observes fairness, and
benevolence, and goodness, of no avail in saving him who practises it
from being termed a bird of the night? And are not they who wallow in
dissoluteness, as do the majority of mankind, and they who associate
promiscuously with common harlots, and who teach that such practices are
not wholly contrary to propriety, worms who roll in mire?—especially
when they are compared with those who have been taught not to take the
“members of Christ,” and the body inhabited by the Word, and make them
the “members of a harlot;” and who have already learned that the body of
the rational being, as consecrated to the God of all things, is the
temple of the God whom they worship, becoming such from the pure
conceptions which they entertain of the Creator, and who also, being
careful not to corrupt the temple of God by unlawful pleasure, practise
temperance as constituting piety towards God!
Footnote 564:
τὰ αὐτόθεν πᾶσι προφαινόμενα δόγματα Χριστιανῶν καὶ Ἰουδαίων.
Footnote 565:
φαντασίᾳ δ’ εὐσεβείας.
Footnote 566:
ἢ καὶ τὰ δημιουργήματα.
Footnote 567:
λίθων καὶ ξύλων.
Footnote 568:
διαοκεῖν.
Footnote 569:
ὑπὸ λογικῶν πιθανοτήτων.