all means_” in the sense of “_simple futurity_,”[95] which nothing hinders from being true (although it was possible that they might not happen), he does not at all touch my argument; nor did it follow, from Jesus having predicted the acts of the traitor or the perjurer, that it was the same thing with His being the cause of such impious and unholy proceedings. For He who was amongst us, and knew what was in man, seeing his evil disposition, and foreseeing what he would attempt from his spirit of covetousness, and from his want of stable ideas of duty towards his Master, along with many other declarations, gave utterance to this also: “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.”[96] Footnote 92: εὐτελέσι. Footnote 93: ἀργὸς λόγος. Footnote 94: Euripid. _Phœnissæ_, 18-20. Footnote 95: ἀντὶ τοῦ ἔσται. Footnote 96: Matt. xxvi. 23. Chapter XXI. Observe also the superficiality and manifest falsity of such a statement of Celsus, when he asserts “that he who was partaker of a man’s table would not conspire against him; and if he would not conspire against a man, much less would he plot against a God after banqueting with him.” For who does not know that many persons, after partaking of the salt on the table,[97] have entered into a conspiracy against their entertainers? The whole of Greek and barbarian history is full of such instances. And the Iambic poet of Paros,[98] when upbraiding Lycambes with having violated covenants confirmed by the salt of the table, says to him: “But thou hast broken a mighty oath—that, viz., by the salt of the table.” And they who are interested in historical learning, and who give themselves wholly to it, to the neglect of other branches of knowledge more necessary for the conduct of life,[99] can quote numerous instances, showing that they who shared in the hospitality of others entered into conspiracies against them. Footnote 97: ἁλῶν καὶ τραπέζης. Footnote 98: Archilochus. Footnote 99: Guietus would expunge these words as “inept.” Chapter XXII. He adds to this, as if he had brought together an argument with conclusive demonstrations and consequences, the following: “And, which is still more absurd, God himself conspired against those who sat at his table, by converting them into traitors and impious men.” But how Jesus could either conspire or convert His disciples into traitors or impious men, it would be impossible for him to prove, save by means of such a deduction as any one could refute with the greatest ease. Chapter XXIII.