"I HAVE often wished," says Warburton in a letter to Dr. Forster,
October 15, 1749, "for a hand capable of collecting all the fragments
remaining of Porphyry, Celsus, Hierocles, and Julian, and giving them
to us with a just, critical and theological comment, as a defy to
infidelity. It is certain we want something more than what their ancient
answerers have given us. This would be a very noble work*."
The author of the following Collectanea has partially effected what Dr.
Warburton wished
* See Barker's Parriana, vol. ii. p. 48.
{iv}
to see accomplished; for as he is not a _divine_, he has not attempted
in his Notes to confute Celsus, but has confined himself solely to an
illustration of his meaning, by a citation of parallel passages in other
ancient authors.
As the answer, however, of Origen to the arguments of Celsus is very
futile and inefficient, it would be admirable to see some one of the
learned divines with which the church at present abounds, leap into the
arena, and by vanquishing Celsus, prove that the Christian religion
is peculiarly adapted to the present times, and to the interest of the
priests by whom it is professed and disseminated.
The Marquis D'Argens published a translation in French, accompanied
by the Greek text, of the arguments of the Emperor Julian against
the Christians; and as an apology for the present work, I subjoin the
following translation of a part of his preliminary discourse, in which
he defends that publication.
"It may be that certain half-witted gentleman
{v}
may reproach me for having brought forward a work composed in former
times against the Christians, in the vulgar tongue. To such I might
at once simply reply, that the work was preserved by a Father of the
Church; but I will go further, and tell them with Father Petau, who gave
a Greek edition of the works of Julian, that if those who condemn the
authors that have published these works, will temper the ardour of their
zeal with reason and judgement, they will think differently, and will
distinguish between the good use that may be made of the book, and the
bad intentions of the writer.
"Father Petau also judiciously remarks, that if the times were not gone
by when daemons took the advantage of idolatry to seduce mankind, it
would be prudent not to afford any aid, or give the benefit of any
invective against Jesus, or the Christian religion to the organs of
those daemons; but since by the blessing of God and the help of the
cross, which have brought about our salvation, the monstrous dogmas of
Paganism are buried in oblivion,
{vi}
we have nothing to fear from that pest; there is no weighty reason for
our rising up against the monuments of Pagan aberration that now remain,
and totally destroying them. On the contrary, the same Father Petau
says, that it is better to treat them as the ancient Christians treated
the images and temples of the gods. At first, in the provinces in
which they were in power, they razed them to the very foundations, that
nothing might be visible to posterity that could perpetuate impiety, or
the sight of which could recall mankind to an abominable worship. But
when the same Christians had firmly established their religion, it
appeared more rational to them, after destroying the altars and statues
of the gods, to preserve the temples, and by purifying them, to make
them serviceable for the worship of the true God. The same Christians
also, not only discontinued to break the statues and images of the
gods, but they took the choicest of them, that were the work of the most
celebrated artists, and set them up in public places to ornament their
cities, as well as to recall to the memory of those who beheld them, how
gross
{vii}
the blindness* of their ancestors had been, and how powerful the grace
that had delivered them from it."
The Marquis d'Argens further observes: "It were to be wished, that
Father Petau, having so judiciously considered the works of Julian, had
formed an equally correct idea of the person of that Emperor. I cannot
discover through what caprice he takes it amiss, that a certain learned
Professor** has praised the civil virtues of Julian, and condemned the
evidently false calumnies that almost all the ecclesiastical authors
have lavished upon him; and amongst the rest Gregory and Cyril, who
to the good arguments they have adduced against the false reasoning of
Julian, have added insults which ought never to have been used by any
defender of truth. They have cruelly
* The Heathens would here reply to Father Petau. Which is
the greater blindness of the two,-- ours, in worshipping the
images of deiform processions from the ineffable principle
of things, and who are eternally united to him; or that of
the Papists, in worshipping the images of worthless men
** Monsieur de la Bletric.
{viii}
calumniated this Emperor to favour _their good cause_, and confounded
the just, wise, clement, and most courageous prince, with the Pagan
philosopher and theologian; when they ought simply to have refuted him
with argument, in no case with insult, and still less with calumnies so
evidently false, that during fourteen centuries, in which they have
been so often repeated, they have never been accredited, nor enabled to
assume even an air of truth."
A wise Christian philosopher, La Mothe, Le Vayer, in reflecting on
the great virtues with which Julian was endowed, on the contempt he
manifested for death, on the firmness with which he consoled those who
wept around him, and on his last conversation with Maximus and Priscus
on the immortality of the soul, says, "that after such testimonies of
a virtue, to which _nothing appears to be wanting but the faith to give
its professor a place amongst the blessed_*, we have cause to wonder
that
* According to this _wise Christian philosopher_ therefore,
not only all the confessedly wise and virtuous
Heathens that lived posterior, but those also who lived anterior to the
promulgation of the Christian religion, will have no place hereafter
among the blessed.
{ix}
Cyril should have tried to make us believe, that Julian was a mean and
cowardly prince*. Those who judge of men that lived in former ages by
those who have lived in more recent times, may feel little surprise at
the proceedings of Cyril. It has rarely happened that long animosity and
abuse have not been introduced into religious controversies."
After what has been above said of Julian, I deem it necessary to
observe, that Father Petau is egregiously mistaken in supposing that
Cyril has preserved the whole of that Emperor's arguments against the
Christians: and the Marquis D'Argens is also mistaken when he says, that
"the passages of Julian's text which are
* This is by no means wonderful in Cyril, when we consider
that he is, with the strongest reason, suspected of being
the cause of the murder of Hypatia, who was one of the
brightest ornaments of the Alexandrian school, and who was
not only a prodigy of learning, but also a paragon of
beauty.
{x}
abridged or omitted, aire very few." For Hieronymus in Epist. 83. _Ad
Magnum Oratorem Romanum_, testifies that this work consisted of seven
books; three of which only Cyril attempted to confute, as is evident
from his own words, [--Greek--] "Julian wrote three books against the
holy Evangelists." But as Fabricius observes, (in Biblioth. Graec. tom.
vii. p. 89.) in the other four books, he appears to have attacked the
remaining books of the Scriptures, i. e. the books of the Old Testament.
With respect, however, to the three books which Cyril has endeavoured to
confute, it appears to me, that he has only selected such parts of these
books as he thought he could most easily answer. For that he has not
given even the substance of these three books, is evident from the
words of Julian himself, as recorded by Cyril. For Julian, after certain
invectives both against Christ and John, says, "These things, therefore,
we shall shortly discuss, when we come particularly to consider
{xi}
the monstrous deeds and fraudulent machinations of the Evangelists*."
There is no particular discussion however of these in any part of the
extracts preserved by Cyril.
That the work, indeed, of Julian against the Christians was of
considerable extent, is evident from the testimony of his contemporary,
Libanius; who, in his admirable funeral oration on this most
extraordinary man, has the following remarkable passage: "But when the
winter had extended the nights, Julian, besides many other beautiful
works, attacked the books which make a man of Palestine to be a God, and
the son of God; and in _a long contest_, and with strenuous arguments,
evinced that what is said in these writings is ridiculous and nugatory.
And in the execution of this work he appears to have excelled in wisdom
the Tyrian old man.**
* [--Greek--]
** viz. Porphyry, who was of Tyre, and who, as is well
known, wrote a work against the Christians, which was
publicly burnt by order of the Emperor Constantine.
{xii}
In asserting this however, may the Tyrian be propitious to me, and
benevolently receive what I have said, he having been vanquished by his
son*."
With respect to Celsus, the author of the following Fragments, he lived
in the time of the Emperor Adrian. and was, if Origen may be credited,
an Epicurean philosopher. That he might indeed, at some former period of
his life, have been an Epicurean maybe admitted; but it would be highly
absurd to suppose that he was so when he wrote this invective against
the Christians; for the arguments which he mostly employs show that he
was well skilled m the philosophy of Plato: and to suppose, as Origen
does, that he availed himself of arguments in
* [--Greek--]
[xiii]
which he did not believe, and consequently conceived to be erroneous, in
order to confute doctrines which he was persuaded are false, would be
to make him, instead of a philosopher, a fool. As to Origen, though he
abandoned philosophy for Christianity, he was considered as heterodox
by many of the Christian sect. Hence, with some of the Catholics,
his future salvation became a matter of doubt*; and this induced the
celebrated Johannes Picus Mirandulanus, in the last of his _Theological
conclusions according to his own opinion_, to say: "Rationabilius est
credere Uriginem esse salvum, quam credere ipsum esse damnatum," _i. e.
It is more reasonable to believe that Origen is saved, than that he is
damned._