But since nothing belonging to human nature is permanent, this polity
also must gradually be corrupted and changed. And Providence, having
remodelled their venerable system where it needed to be changed, so as
to adapt it to men of all countries, gave to believers of all nations,
in place of the Jews, the venerable religion of Jesus, who, being
adorned not only with understanding, but also with a share of
divinity,[609] and having overthrown the doctrine regarding earthly
demons, who delight in frankincense, and blood, and in the exhalations
of sacrificial odours, and who, like the fabled Titans or Giants, drag
down men from thoughts of God; and having Himself disregarded their
plots, directed chiefly against the better class of men, enacted laws
which ensure happiness to those who live according to them, and who do
not flatter the demons by means of sacrifices, but altogether despise
them, through help of the word of God, which aids those who look upwards
to Him. And as it was the will of God that the doctrine of Jesus should
prevail amongst men, the demons could effect nothing, although straining
every nerve[610] to accomplish the destruction of Christians; for they
stirred up both princes, and senates, and rulers in every place,—nay,
even nations themselves, who did not perceive the irrational and wicked
procedure of the demons,—against the word, and those who believed in it;
yet, notwithstanding, the word of God, which is more powerful than all
other things, even when meeting with opposition, deriving from the
opposition, as it were, a means of increase, advanced onwards, and won
many souls, such being the will of God. And we have offered these
remarks by way of a necessary digression. For we wished to answer the
assertion of Celsus concerning the Jews, that they were “fugitives from
Egypt, and that these men, beloved by God, never accomplished anything
worthy of note.” And further, in answer to the statement that “they were
never held in any reputation or account,” we say, that living apart as a
“chosen nation and a royal priesthood,” and shunning intercourse with
the many nations around them, in order that their morals might escape
corruption, they enjoyed the protection of the divine power, neither
coveting like the most of mankind the acquisition of other kingdoms, nor
yet being abandoned so as to become, on account of their smallness, an
easy object of attack to others, and thus be altogether destroyed; and
this lasted so long as they were worthy of the divine protection. But
when it became necessary for them, as a nation wholly given to sin, to
be brought back by their sufferings to their God, they were abandoned
[by Him], sometimes for a longer, sometimes for a shorter period, until
in the time of the Romans, having committed the greatest of sins in
putting Jesus to death, they were completely deserted.
Footnote 609:
θείᾳ μοίρᾳ.
Footnote 610:
καίτοιγε πάντα κάλων κινήσαντες.