And since Celsus has termed the apostles of Jesus men of infamous
notoriety, saying that they were tax-gatherers and sailors of the vilest
character, we have to remark, with respect to this charge, that he
seems, in order to bring an accusation against Christianity, to believe
the Gospel accounts only where he pleases, and to express his disbelief
of them, in order that he may not be forced to admit the manifestations
of Divinity related in these same books; whereas one who sees the spirit
of truth by which the writers are influenced, ought, from their
narration of things of inferior importance, to believe also the account
of divine things. Now in the general Epistle of Barnabas, from which
perhaps Celsus took the statement that the apostles were notoriously
wicked men, it is recorded that “Jesus selected His own apostles, as
persons who were more guilty of sin than all other evil-doers.”[1237]
And in the Gospel according to Luke, Peter says to Jesus, “Depart from
me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.”[1238] Moreover, Paul, who himself
also at a later time became an apostle of Jesus, says in his Epistle to
Timothy, “This is a faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.”[1239] And I do not know
how Celsus should have forgotten or not have thought of saying something
about Paul, the founder, after Jesus, of the churches that are in
Christ. He saw, probably, that anything he might say about that apostle
would require to be explained, in consistency with the fact that, after
being a persecutor of the church of God, and a bitter opponent of
believers, who went so far even as to deliver over the disciples of
Jesus to death, so great a change afterwards passed over him, that he
preached the gospel of Jesus from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum,
and was ambitious to carry the glad tidings where he needed not to build
upon another man’s foundation, but to places where the gospel of God in
Christ had not been proclaimed at all. What absurdity, therefore, is
there, if Jesus, desiring to manifest to the human race the power which
He possesses to heal souls, should have selected notorious and wicked
men, and should have raised them to such a degree of moral excellence,
that they became a pattern of the purest virtue to all who were
converted by their instrumentality to the gospel of Christ?
Footnote 1237:
Epistle of Barnabas, chap. v. (Cf. Ante-Nicene Library, vol. Apostolic
Fathers, p. 108.)
Footnote 1238:
Luke v. 8.
Footnote 1239:
Cf. 1 Tim. i. 15.