Apologetics -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Celsus (Platonic philosopher), active 180; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
Now if these things be so, why should it not be consistent with reason
to hold with regard to Jesus, who was able to effect results so great,
that there dwelt in _Him_ no ordinary divinity? while this was not the
case either with the Proconnesian Aristeas (although Apollo would have
him regarded as a god), or with the other individuals enumerated by
Celsus when he says, “No one regards Abaris the Hyperborean as a god,
who was possessed of such power as to be borne along like an arrow from
a bow.”[341] For with what object did the deity who bestowed upon this
Hyperborean Abaris the power of being carried along like an arrow,
confer upon him such a gift? Was it that the human race might be
benefited thereby,[342] or did he himself obtain any advantage from the
possession of such a power?—always supposing it to be conceded that
these statements are not wholly inventions, but that the thing actually
happened through the co-operation of some demon. But if it be recorded
that my Jesus was received up into glory,[343] I perceive the divine
arrangement[344] in such an act, viz. because God, who brought this to
pass, commends in this way the Teacher to those who witnessed it, in
order that as men who are contending not for human doctrine, but for
divine teaching, they may devote themselves as far as possible to the
God who is over all, and may do all things in order to please Him, as
those who are to receive in the divine judgment the reward of the good
or evil which they have wrought in this life.
Footnote 341:
ὥστε ὀϊστῷ βέλει συμφέρεσθαι. Spencer and Bohereau would delete βέλει
as a gloss.
Footnote 342:
Guietus would insert ἤ before ἵνα τὶ ὠφεληθῇ. This emendation is
adopted in the translation.
Footnote 343:
Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16.
Footnote 344:
τὴν οἰκονομίαν.
Chapter XXXII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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