And let any one who peruses the treatise of Celsus observe whether it
does not convey some such insinuation as the above, when he says: “And
they attempted to derive their origin from the first race of jugglers
and deceivers, appealing to the testimony of dark and ambiguous words,
whose meaning was veiled in obscurity.” For these names are indeed
obscure, and not within the comprehension and knowledge of many, though
not in our opinion of doubtful meaning, even although assumed by those
who are aliens to our religion; but as, according to Celsus, they do
not[616] convey any ambiguity, I am at a loss to know why he has
rejected them. And yet, if he had wished honestly to overturn the
genealogy which he deemed the Jews to have so shamelessly arrogated, in
boasting of Abraham and his descendants [as their progenitors], he ought
to have quoted _all_ the passages bearing on the subject; and, in the
first place, to have advocated his cause with such arguments as he
thought likely to be convincing, and in the next to have bravely[617]
refuted, by means of what appeared to him to be the true meaning, and by
arguments in its favour, the errors existing on the subject. But neither
Celsus nor any one else will be able, by their discussions regarding the
nature of names employed for miraculous purposes, to lay down the
correct doctrine regarding them, and to demonstrate that those men were
to be lightly esteemed whose names merely, not among their countrymen
alone, but also amongst foreigners, could accomplish [such results]. He
ought to have shown, moreover, how we, in misinterpreting[618] the
passages in which these names are found, deceive our hearers, as he
imagines, while he himself, who boasts that he is not ignorant or
unintelligent, gives the true interpretation of them. And he hazarded
the assertion,[619] in speaking of those names, from which the Jews
deduce their genealogies, that “never, during the long antecedent
period, has there been any dispute about these names, but that at the
present time the Jews dispute about them with certain others,” whom he
does not mention. Now, let him who chooses show who these are that
dispute with the Jews, and who adduce even probable arguments to show
that Jews and Christians do not decide correctly on the points relating
to these names, but that there are others who have discussed these
questions with the greatest learning and accuracy. But we are well
assured that none can establish anything of the sort, it being manifest
that these names are derived from the Hebrew language, which is found
only among the Jews.
Footnote 616:
κατὰ δὲ Κέλσον, οὐ παριστάντα. _Libri editi ad oram_ ὡς παριστάντα.
Footnote 617:
γενναίως.
Footnote 618:
παρεξηγούμενοι.
Footnote 619:
παρέῤῥιψε.