Apologetics -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Celsus (Platonic philosopher), active 180; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
And as we teach, moreover, that “wisdom will not enter into the soul of
a base man, nor dwell in a body that is involved in sin,”[416] we say,
Whoever has clean hands, and therefore lifts up holy hands to God, and
by reason of being occupied with elevated and heavenly things, can say,
“The lifting up of my hands is as the evening sacrifice,”[417] let him
come to us; and whoever has a wise tongue through meditating on the law
of the Lord day and night, and by “reason of habit has his senses
exercised to discern between good and evil,” let him have no reluctance
in coming to the strong and rational sustenance which is adapted to
those who are athletes in piety and every virtue. And since the grace of
God is with all those who love with a pure affection the teacher of the
doctrines of immortality, whoever is pure not only from all defilement,
but from what are regarded as lesser transgressions, let him be boldly
initiated in the mysteries of Jesus, which properly are made known only
to the holy and the pure. The initiated of Celsus accordingly says, “Let
him whose soul is conscious of no evil come.” But he who acts as
initiator, according to the precepts of Jesus, will say to those who
have been purified in heart, “He whose soul has, for a long time, been
conscious of no evil, and especially since he yielded himself to the
healing of the word, let such an one hear the doctrines which were
spoken in private by Jesus to His genuine disciples.” Therefore in the
comparison which he institutes between the procedure of the initiators
into the Grecian mysteries, and the teachers of the doctrine of Jesus,
he does not know the difference between inviting the wicked to be
healed, and initiating those already purified into the sacred mysteries!
Footnote 416:
Wisd. Solom. i. 4.
Footnote 417:
Cf. Ps. cxli. 2.
Chapter LXI.
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