Celsus opens the way for his own attack by rehearsing the taunts
levelled at the Christians by the Jews. Jesus was born in adultery and
nurtured on the wisdom of Egypt. His assertion of divine dignity is
disproved by his poverty and his miserable end. Christians have no
standing in the Old Testament prophecies, and their talk of a
resurrection that was only revealed to some of their own adherents is
foolishness. Celsus indeed says that the Jews are almost as ridiculous
as the foes they attack; the latter said the saviour from Heaven had
come, the former still looked for his coming. However, the Jews have
the advantage of being an ancient nation with an ancient faith. The
idea of an Incarnation of God is absurd; why should the human race
think itself so superior to bees, ants and elephants as to be put in
this unique relation to its maker? And why should God choose to come
to men as a Jew? The Christian idea of a special providence is
nonsense, an insult to the deity. Christians are like a council of
frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dunghill, croaking and
squeaking, "For our sakes was the world created." It is much more
reasonable to believe that each part of the world has its own special
deity; prophets and supernatural messengers had forsooth appeared in
more places than one. Besides being bad philosophy based on fictitious
history, Christianity is not respectable. Celsus does not indeed
repeat the Thyestean charges so frequently brought against Christians
by their calumniators, but he says the Christian teachers who are
mainly weavers and cobblers have no power over men of education. The
qualifications for conversion are ignorance and childish timidity.
Like all quacks they gather a crowd of slaves, children, women and
idlers. "I speak bitterly about this," says Celsus, "because I feel
bitterly. When we are invited to the Mysteries the masters use another
tone. They say, 'Come to us ye who are of clean hands and pure speech,
ye who are unstained by crime, who have a good conscience towards God,
who have done justly and lived uprightly.' The Jews say, 'Come to us
ye who are sinners, ye who are fools or children, ye who are
miserable, and ye shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven.' The rogue,
the thief, the burglar, the poisoner, the spoiler of temples and
tombs, these are their proselytes. Jesus, they say, was sent to save
sinners; was he not sent to help those who have kept themselves free
from sin? They pretend that God will save the unjust man if he repents
and humbles himself. The just man who has held steady from the cradle
in the ways of virtue He will not look upon." He pours scorn upon the
exorcists--who were clearly in league with the demons themselves--and
upon the excesses of the itinerant and undisciplined "prophets" who
roam through cities and camps and commit to everlasting fire cities
and lands and their inhabitants. Above all Christians are disloyal,
and every church is an illicit collegium, an insinuation deadly at any
time, but especially so under Marcus Aurelius. Why cannot Christians
attach themselves to the great philosophic and political authorities
of the world? A properly understood worship of gods and demons is
quite compatible with a purified monotheism, and they might as well
give up the mad idea of winning the authorities over to their faith,
or of hoping to attain anything like universal agreement on divine
things.