Celsus sets Moses against Jesus
Next after this Celsus says something like the following: “Will they not consider this point again? If the prophets of the God of the Jews foretold that this man would be his Son, how is it that through Moses he lays down that they are to be rich and hold power and fill the earth and slaughter their enemies young and old and kill them along with their whole race, which he himself also does before the eyes of the Jews, as Moses says, and besides this threatens outright, if they do not obey, to treat them as he treats their enemies (Numbers 33:56); while his Son, then, the Nazarene man, lays down contrary laws: that the man who is rich or loves power or lays claim to wisdom or glory has no access to the Father (Matthew 19:24), that one must take no more thought for food and storehouse than ‘the ravens’ do (Luke 12:24), and less for clothing than ‘the lilies’ (Luke 12:27), and that to one who has struck once one must offer oneself to be struck again (Luke 6:29)? Which of them is lying, Moses or Jesus? Or did the Father, when he sent this man, forget what commands he had given to Moses? Or did he condemn his own laws and change his mind, and is he now sending his messenger with the opposite charge?”
In saying this, Celsus, who professes to know everything, has made the mistake of a complete layman. As to the meaning of the Scriptures, he has supposed that the law and the prophets hold no deeper sense beyond the words taken by the letter. He does not see that Scripture would not have promised bodily wealth to those who lived rightly in a way so plainly unconvincing, when the most righteous men are shown to have lived in extreme poverty. The prophets, at any rate, who received the divine Spirit because they lived purely, “went about in sheepskins and goatskins, in want, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth” (Hebrews 11:37–38); for “many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19), as the psalmist says.
If Celsus did read the law of Moses, he probably supposed that the words “You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow” (Deuteronomy 15:6), spoken to the one who keeps the law, meant this: that the righteous man is told, by way of promise, that he will grow so rich in blind wealth that, because of the abundance of his money, he will lend not only to Jews, and not just to one other nation, or a second, or a third, but to many. How much money, then, would the righteous man have possessed, having received it as the wage of his righteousness according to the law, so that he could lend “to many nations”? It follows from such an interpretation that one must also suppose that the righteous man never borrows, since it is written: “But you shall not borrow.”
Did the nation, then, remain for so long a time in the worship of God according to Moses, while it plainly saw, so far as Celsus’s view goes, that the lawgiver was lying? For no one is recorded to have grown so rich that he lent “to many nations”. But it is not plausible that they would have fought for the law if they had been taught to understand it as Celsus thought, and plainly saw that the law’s promises were false. And if someone brings forward the recorded sins of the people as proof that they despised the law, perhaps because they had condemned it as lying, we must tell him that he should also read of the times in which the whole people is recorded, after doing evil before the Lord (Judges 2:11), to have turned to the better and to the worship of God according to the law.
Greek
Ἑξῆς δὲ τούτοις τοιαῦτά φησιν ὁ Κέλσος· ἐκεῖνο δ᾿ οὐκ ἐνθυμηθήσονται πάλιν; εἰ προεῖπον οἱ τοῦ Ἰουδαίων θεοῦ προφῆται τοῦτον ἐκείνου παῖδα ἐσόμενον, πῶς ἐκεῖνος μὲν διὰ Μωϋσέως νομοθετεῖ πλουτεῖν καὶ δυναστεύειν καὶ καταπιμπλάναι τὴν γῆν καὶ καταφονεύειν τοὺς πολεμίους ἡβηδὸν καὶ παγγενεὶ κτείνειν, ὅπερ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ὥς φησι Μωϋσῆς, ποιεῖ, καὶ πρὸς ταῦτα, ἂν μὴ πείθωνται, διαῤῥήδην αὐτοὺς τὰ τῶν πολεμίων δράσειν ἀπειλεῖ, ὁ δ᾿ υἱὸς ἄρα αὐτοῦ, ὁ „Ναζωραῖος“ ἄνθρωπος. ἀντινομοθετεῖ μηδὲ παριτητὸν εἶναι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα τῷ πλουτοῦντι ἢ φιλαρχιῶντι ἢ σοφίας ἢ δόξης ἀντιποιουμένῳ, δεῖν δὲ σίτων μὲν καὶ ταμείου μὴ μᾶλλόν τι φροντίζειν ἢ „τοὺς κόρακας,“ ἐσθῆτος δὲ ἧττον ἢ „τὰ κρίνα,“ τῷ δ᾿ ἅπαξ τυπτήσαντι παρέχειν καὶ αὖθις τύπτειν; πότερον Μωϋσῆς ἢ Ἰησοῦς ψεύδεται; ἢ ὁ πατὴρ τοῦτον πέμπων ἐπελάθετο, τίνα Μω(??)σεῖ διετάξατο; ἢ καταγνοὺς τῶν ἰδίων νόμων μετέγνω καὶ τὸν ἄγγελον καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐναντίοις ἀποστέλλει; πέπονθε δὴ διὰ τούτων Κέλσος πρᾶγμα ὁ πάντ᾿ ἐπίστασθαι ἐπαγγελλόμενος ἰδιωτικώτατον, περὶ τοῦ νοῦ τῶν γραφῶν οἰηθεὶς πλέον τῶν κατὰ τὸ γράμμα λέξεων μηδένα λόγον εἶναι βαθύτερον ἐν τῷ νόμῳ καὶ τοῖς προφήταις· οὐχ ὁρῶν ὅτι οὐκ ἂν οὕτω προφανῶς ἀπιθάνως τὸν σωματικὸν ἐπηγγέλλετο πλοῦτον τοῖς ὀρθῶς βιώσασιν ὁ λόγος, δεικνυμένων δικαιοτάτων ἐν ἄκρᾳ πενίᾳ βεβιωκέναι. οἱ γοῦν προφῆται καὶ διὰ τὸ καθαρῶς βεβιωκέναι τὸ θεῖον πνεῦμα χωρήσαντες „περιῆλθον ἐν μηλωταῖς, ἐν αἰγείοις δέρμασιν, ὑστερούμενοι, θλιβόμενοι, κακουχούμενοι, ἐν ἐρημίαις πλανώμενοι καὶ ὄρεσι καὶ σπηλαίοις καὶ ταῖς ὀπαῖς τῆς γῆς“· „πολλαὶ“ γὰρ „αἱ θλίψεις τῶν δικαίων“ κατὰ τὸν ὑμνῳδόν. εἴπερ δὲ ἀνέγνω τὸν Μωϋσέως νόμον ὁ Κέλσος, εἰκὸς ὅτι τὸ „δανιεῖς ἔθνεσι πολλοῖς, σὺ δὲ οὐ δανιῇ,“ λεγόμενον πρὸς τὸν τηροῦντα τὸν νόμον, ᾠήθη τοιοῦτον εἶναι, ὥστ᾿ ἐν ἐπαγγελίᾳ λέγεσθαι τῷ δικαίῳ τοσοῦτον πλουτήσειν τὸν τυφλὸν πλοῦτον, ὥστε διὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν χρημάτων οὐ μόνον Ἰουδαίοις δανείζειν τὸν δίκαιον ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ἄλλῳ ἑνὶ ἔθνει ἢ δευτέρῳ ἢ τρίτῳ ἀλλὰ πολλοῖς. πόσα οὖν ἂν ὁ δίκαιος ἐκέκτητο χρήματα, μισθὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτὰ κατὰ τὸν νόμον λαβὼν, ἵνα δανιοῖ „πολλοῖς ἔθνεσιν“; ἀκόλουθον δ᾿ ἐστὶ τῇ τοιαύτῃ ἐκδοχῇ καὶ τὸ ὑπολαμβάνειν ὅτι οὐδέ ποτε ὁ δίκαιος δανείζεται, ἐπεὶ γέγραπται· „σὺ δὲ οὐ δανιῇ.“ ἆρ᾿ οὖν ἔμεινε τὸ ἔθνος τοσούτοις χρόνοις ἐν τῇ κατὰ Μωϋσέα θεοσεβείᾳ, προφανῶς βλέπον ψευδόμενον ὅσον ἐπὶ τῷ Κέλσῳ τὸν νομοθέτην; οὐδὲ γὰρ ἱστόρηταί τις τοσοῦτον πλουτήσας, ὡς δεδανεικέναι „ἔθνεσι πολλοῖς.“ ἀλλ᾿ οὐ πιθανὸν οὕτως αὐτοὺς διδασκομένους ἀκούειν τοῦ νόμου, ὡς Κέλσος ᾤετο, καὶ προφανῶς βλέποντας ψευδεῖς (τὰς) κατὰ τὸν νόμον ἐπαγγελίας ἀγωνίζεσθαι περὶ τοῦ νόμου. ἐὰν δὲ τὰς ἀναγεγραμμένας τις ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ φέρῃ παράδειγμα τοῦ καταπεφρονηκέναι αὐτοὺς τοῦ νόμου, τάχα διὰ τὸ κατεγνωκέναι αὐτοὺς ὡς ψευδομένου, λεκτέον πρὸς αὐτὸν ὅτι ἀναγνωστέον καὶ τοὺς χρόνους, ἐν οἷς ὅλος ὁ λαὸς ἀναγέγραπται μετὰ τὸ πεποιηκέναι τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιον καὶ τὴν κατὰ τὸν νόμον θεοσέβειαν μεταβεβληκέναι.