Arguments Of Celsus, Porphyry, And The Emperor Julian, Against The Christians Part 1

Arguments Of Celsus, Porphyry, And The Emperor Julian, Against The Christians.

by Thomas Taylor.

INTRODUCTION.

"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 n.o.ble work*."

The author of the following Collectanea has partially effected what Dr.

Warburton wished

* See Barker's Parriana, vol. ii. p. 48.

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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 ill.u.s.tration of his meaning, by a citation of parallel pa.s.sages 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 vanquis.h.i.+ng 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

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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 G.o.d and the help of the cross, which have brought about our salvation, the monstrous dogmas of Paganism are buried in oblivion,

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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 G.o.ds. 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 wors.h.i.+p. But when the same Christians had firmly established their religion, it appeared more rational to them, after destroying the altars and statues of the G.o.ds, to preserve the temples, and by purifying them, to make them serviceable for the wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d. The same Christians also, not only discontinued to break the statues and images of the G.o.ds, 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

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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 wors.h.i.+pping the images of deiform processions from the ineffable principle of things, and who are eternally united to him; or that of the Papists, in wors.h.i.+pping the images of worthless men

** Monsieur de la Bletric.

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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 a.s.sume 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.

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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 pa.s.sages 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.

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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

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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 pa.s.sage: "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 G.o.d, and the son of G.o.d; 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.

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In a.s.serting 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--]

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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 Mirandula.n.u.s, in the last of his _Theological conclusions according to his own opinion_, to say: "Rationabilius est credere Uriginem esse salvum, quam credere ipsum esse d.a.m.natum," _i. e.

It is more reasonable to believe that Origen is saved, than that he is d.a.m.ned._

I shall conclude this Introduction with the following extract.

* 'In Prato Spiritual!, c. 26, quod citatur, a VIL Synodo, et a Johanne Diacono, lib. ii. c. 45. vitas B. Gregorii narratur fevelatio, qua Origines viras est in Gehenna ignis c.u.m Alio et Netftorio."*--Fobric. BMiotk Grate torn. v. p.

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