tained that the philosophers and poets of Greece and Rome were inspired solely by Demons, and consequently all of them were organs of Evil Spirits. The Book of Enoch, then much in vogue among Christians, was frequently quoted to sustain this doctrine. Clement of Alexandria combated these views; for he could not forget by what process his own mind had been prepared for Christianity. He says: "Allowing this view to be correct, yet even Satan could deceive men only by clothing himself like an angel of light. In order to draw men, he must be obliged to mingle truth with falsehood; and we must still search for and acknowledge the truth, from whatever quarter it may come. Even this communication can take place no otherwise than according to the will of God. It must therefore be included with all the rest of God's plan for the education of the human race. But when we consider that sin and disorder are the only appropriate works of Satan, is it not strange that he should be represented as the bestower of philosophy, which is a benefit? In this, he would seem to have been more benevolent to good men among the Greeks, than Divine Providence himself." Elsewhere he says: "He who would gather from every quarter what would be for the profit of the catechumens, especially if they are Greeks, must not, like irrational brutes, be shy of much learning, but must seek to collect round him every possible means of helping his hearers." An heretical teacher, named Hermogenes, taught that men did not receive immortality until it was imparted by the new life infused into them from Christ; hence only those who believed on him would be immortal; all others would sink back into the inert mass of Matter, whence they sprang. Others who believed human souls were originally immortal, thought they had lost the gift, and could regain it only by baptism and participation of the eucharist. Both these views of course excluded all Pagans from salvation.

Many converts came into Christianity through the portal of Greek philosophy, and some of them proved the greatest ornaments of the church. But in general, the VOL. II.-31

views entertained by Christians appeared monstrous and absurd to the learned among the Gentiles. Celsus, supposed to have been an Epicurean philosopher, toward the close of the second century, was the first writer who entered the lists against them; and he made his attack mostly in a sarcastic vein. The pictures of God's vengeance, borrowed from the Jews, were peculiarly offensive to Greek and Roman philosophers, who could never conceive of the Supreme Being as capable of anger, or any other passion. The fictions of the poets, which so represented Jupiter, were, by them, uniformly regarded as impious. Celsus and other writers scoffed at the idea that the Logos of God was born of a woman, walked about in a human form, and was subject to human infirmities. They compared it to the fables of their poets, which represented Jupiter as assuming various shapes to pursue his love-affairs on earth. They retorted the charge of polytheism, by accusing Christians of believing in more than one God; for Christ, as the Maker of heaven and earth, had "more power than was ever attributed to Apollo, or Mars." The idea that the world was made for man, and that the providence of God watched over the well-being of every individual, seemed to Celsus mere arrogant presumption. He says: "It is not for man, any more than for lions and eagles, that everything in the world has been created. It was in order that the world, as the work of God, might present a perfect whole. God provides only for the whole; and that his providence never deserts. This world never becomes any worse. God does not return to it, after a long interval. He is as little angry with man, as he is with apes and flies. The universe has been provided, once for all, with all the powers necessary for its preservation, and for developing itself after the same laws. God has not, like chitect, so executed his work, that at some future period it would need to be repaired."

human ar

With regard to the Christian doctrine of One God, Celsus says: "We also place a Supreme Being above the world, and above all created things; and we approve and sympa

thize with whatever may be taught concerning a spiritual rather than a material adoration of the gods. For with a belief in the gods, worshipped in every land and by every people, harmonizes the belief in a Primal Being, a Supreme God, who has given to every land its guardian, to every people its presiding deity. The unity of the Supreme Being, and the consequent unity of the design of the universe, remains, even if it be admitted that each nation has its gods, whom it must worship in a peculiar manner, according to its peculiar character; and the worship of all these different deities is reflected back to the Supreme God, who has appointed them, as it were, his delegates and representatives. Those who argue that men ought not to serve many masters, impute human weakness to God. He is not jealous of the adoration paid to subordinate deities. His nature is superior to degradation and insult. Reason itself might justify the belief in the inferior deities, the objects of estab lished worship. For since the Supreme Being can only produce that which is immortal and imperishable, the existence of mortal beings cannot be explained, unless we distinguish from Him those inferior deities, and suppose them to be the creators of mortal beings, and of perishable things."

Celsus, in common with most of the Grecians, despised Christianity as a blind faith, that shunned the light of reason. He says: "They are forever repeating, Do not examine. Only believe, and thy faith will make thee blessed. Wisdom is a bad thing in life; foolishness is to be preferred." He jeers at the fact that ignorant men were allowed to preach. He says: "You may see weavers, tailors, fullers, and the most illiterate and rustic fellows, who dare not speak a word before wise men, when they can get a company of children and silly women together, set up to teach strange paradoxes among them." The words of Jesus, "I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast concealed these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes," Celsus construes thus: "This is one of their rules: Let no man that is learned, wise, or

prudent, come among us; but if any be unlearned, or a child, or an idiot, let him freely come. So they openly declare that none but the ignorant, and those devoid of understanding, slaves, women, and children, are fit disciples for the God they worship." The calling of sinners into the fold of the church also seemed to him a degrading feature in the new religion; for it was altogether foreign to the dignified respectability of the philosophic schools. He says: "Those who invite us to become initiated into other religious Mysteries, begin by proclaiming, Let only him approach who is free from stain, who is conscious of no wickedness, who has lived a good and upright life. But let us hear who it is these Christians call. They say, Whoever is a sinner, whoever is foolish, whoever is wretched, him will the kingdom of God receive." He ridicules the self-abasement of the Christian, whom he describes as "forever on his knees, or rolling in the dust; a man who dresses meanly, and sprinkles himself with ashes." The miracles of Christ and his followers, he attributed to magic. He says: "The magicians in Egypt cast out Evil Spirits, cure diseases by a breath, call up the spirits of the dead, make inanimate things move as if they were alive, and so influence some uncultured men, that they produce in them whatever sights and sounds they please. But because they do such things shall we consider them sons of God? Or shall we call such things the tricks of wicked and pitiable men?" He speaks also of wonder-workers among the Christians, "who ramble about to play tricks at fairs and markets; not indeed in circles of the wiser and better sort, for among such they never venture to appear; but wherever they see a set of ignorant young fellows, slaves, or fools, there they take care to intrude themselves, and display all their arts." Lucian, a friend of Celsus, writing in the same spirit, says: "If a magician, or impostor, who is apt at his trade, goes among the Christians, he can shortly make himself rich; having to deal with an ignorant class of people."

Celsus especially holds up to ridicule the gross pictures

of the millenium, which some delighted to draw; nor does he fail to take advantage of the divisions continually springing up. He says: "When Christians were few in number, perhaps they agreed among themselves. But, as their numbers increased, they separated into parties, mutually attacking and refuting each other, retaining nothing in common but their name; if indeed they did that. Many who came, as it were out of a fit of intoxication into their sober senses, altered the evangelical narrative, in manifold ways, from the shape in which it was first recorded, that they might have wherewith to refute objections." He also reproached them with forging imitations of the Grecian Sibyls, and passing them off as prophecies concerning Christ.

Origen wrote an able and earnest reply to Celsus. He ridiculed the images which the populace were taught to regard as gods; saying that swallows would build nests in their mouths, and spiders cover their heads with cobwebs, unless great pains were taken to brush and wash them. He gloried in it, as a peculiarity of the Christian religion, proving it to be a revelation from that God who cared for all men, that it had power to attract, by mere faith, the masses of mankind, who by their situation were incapable of scientific inquiry. He adds: "But we are far from prohibiting the wise, the learned, and the prudent from coming among us, provided the rude, the simple, and the unlearned be not excluded. We are most willing to instruct our youth in the presence of masters of families, and Doctors of philosophy, if they are men who aspire after the best things; for we are well assured that we should find such men favourable judges."

No charge was more frequéntly brought against the Christians than that of trying to introduce a religion which had no antiquity to recommend it, whose founder was a poor carpenter in Judea, a malefactor, condemned to an ignominious death. To this reproach the Fathers replied in various ways. They affirmed that he who was appa rently a carpenter, and a malefactor, was the Divine Logos, VOL. II.-31*