Fewer Evils, or More

So consider whether we ought to side with a man who attacks Christians while holding views like these, and give up an account that allows a difference between bodies on the strength of the qualities that attach to them and surround them. For we too know that there are “heavenly bodies and earthly bodies,” and that “the glory of the heavenly is one thing and the glory of the earthly another,” and that even among the heavenly the glory is not the same: “the sun has one glory and the stars another,” and among the stars themselves, “one star differs from another star in glory.” That is why we, who accept the resurrection of the dead, say that the qualities in bodies undergo changes. Some of them are sown perishable and are raised imperishable; some are sown in dishonor and are raised in glory; some are sown in weakness and are raised in power; and what is sown as a natural body is raised a spiritual one. And that the matter underlying bodies is able to receive whatever qualities the Maker wants to give it — that is something all of us who accept providence maintain. If God wills it, one kind of quality belongs to this piece of matter now, and afterward another kind, better and different. [a]

And since there are also fixed courses laid down for the changes bodies go through — from the time the world exists and for as long as it lasts — what happens once a new and different course has taken over after the destruction of the world, at what our own writings call the consummation, I do not know — it is no wonder that at present a snake is formed out of a dead man, growing (as most people say) out of the marrow of the spine; and a bee out of an ox, and a wasp out of a horse, and a beetle out of a donkey, and, in short, worms out of most bodies. Celsus thinks this proves that none of these things is the work of God, and that the qualities — however it came to be arranged that these should spring out of those — are not the work of any divine reason changing the qualities that are in matter.

We have this to say as well to Celsus, who said: “The soul is the work of God, but the nature of body is different.” He threw out so large a claim not only without proof but without drawing any distinction, for he did not make clear whether he meant that every soul is God’s work or only the rational soul. So this is what we say to him. If every soul is God’s work, then plainly the souls of the irrational animals are too, even the cheapest of them — with the result that the nature of every body would be different from the nature of soul. And in what follows, where he says that irrational animals are dearer to God than we are and have a purer notion of the divine, he seems to be maintaining that not only the human soul but much more the soul of irrational animals is the work of God; for that is what follows from saying that they are dearer to God than we are. [e]

But if only the rational soul is God’s work, then, first, he did not make that clear; and second, it follows from his having spoken about the soul without distinguishing — as though not every soul but only the rational one were God’s work — that the nature of every body is not different either. And if the nature of every body is not different, but each animal’s body corresponds to its soul, then plainly the body of the animal whose soul is God’s work would differ from a body in which a soul lives that is not God’s work. And so it will be false to say that the body of a bat, or of a worm, or of a frog, is no different from a man’s.

For it would indeed be absurd that some stones and buildings should be counted purer or fouler than other stones and buildings, according to whether they were built for the honor of the divine or to house the most dishonored and polluted bodies, while bodies were no different from bodies according to whether what lives in them is rational or irrational — and, among the rational, whether they are the serious sort or the worst of men. It is a thing like this that has made some people dare to make gods of the bodies of outstanding men, on the ground that these had received a soul of the serious kind, and to throw away or dishonor the bodies of the worst. I do not say that this has always been done soundly, only that it took its start from a sound idea. Or will the wise man, after the deaths of Anytus and Socrates, take the same care over the burial of Socrates’ body as over the burial of Anytus’s, and build a like mound or tomb for both? [g]

We have said all this because of the words “none of which is the work of God” — where “which” refers back to the body of a man, or to the snakes that come out of the body; and to the body of an ox, or to the bees that come out of the body of an ox; and to the body of a horse or of a donkey, and to the wasps that come out of a horse and the beetles that come out of a donkey. That is what has forced us to take up again his saying that the soul is the work of God, but the nature of body is different.

Next he says: “The nature of all the bodies mentioned is common and one, going and coming back again in a reversing exchange.” In answer to this it is clear, from what has already been said, that a common nature runs not only through the bodies listed before but through the heavenly ones as well. And if that is so, then plainly, according to him — though I do not know whether according to the truth — it is one nature that goes and comes back again in a reversing exchange through all bodies. It is clear that this holds on the view of those who hold that the world perishes; and those who hold that it does not will also try to show, without letting in a “fifth body,” that on their account too the nature of all bodies is one, going and coming back again in a reversing exchange. And in this way even what perishes remains, in order to undergo change; for the underlying thing, matter, remains when the quality perishes — so at least those say who bring it in as uncreated. If, however, some argument can show that it is not uncreated but came into being for some use, then plainly it will not have the same nature with respect to remaining that it would have on the supposition that it is uncreated. But it is not our business at present, while we are meeting Celsus’ accusations, to go into natural philosophy. [j]

He says as well: “Nothing born of matter is immortal.” In answer to this it may be said that if nothing born of matter is immortal, then either the whole world is immortal and is not born of matter, or it too is not an immortal thing. If, then, the world is immortal — which is what suits those who say that the soul alone is the work of God and say that it was made out of a certain mixing bowl — let Celsus show that the world did not come out of matter without qualities, keeping to his own rule that nothing born of matter is immortal. But if the world is not immortal, since it is born of matter, and is mortal, then does it also perish, or not? If it perishes, it will perish while being the work of God; and then, when the world perishes, what will the soul do, which is also the work of God? Let Celsus answer that. [m]

But if he twists the notion of “immortal” and says that a thing which is perishable but does not in fact perish is immortal — able to die, but not actually dying — then plainly, on his account, there will be something at once mortal and immortal, because it is capable of both; and there will be a mortal thing that does not die; and a thing that is not immortal by nature will be called immortal in a special sense, because it does not die. By what distinction of meaning, then, will he say that nothing born of matter is immortal? And you see that when the thoughts in his book are pressed and put to the test, they are shown to admit nothing sound and nothing that cannot be answered.

Having said this he adds: “On this subject that much is enough; and if anyone is able to listen further and to inquire, he will come to know.” So let us, who in his judgment are unintelligent, see what came of our being able to listen to him even a little and to inquire.

After this, the questions about the nature of evils — searched out in many ways through many discussions that are not to be dismissed lightly, and explained in very different ways — he thinks he can teach us in a few little phrases. He says: “Among the things that are, evils could not become fewer or more, either before, or now, or later. For the nature of the whole is one and the same, and the coming-to-be of evils is always the same.” He seems to have paraphrased this too from the Theaetetus, where Plato’s Socrates says: “But it is not possible for evils to be destroyed out of men, nor for them to be settled among the gods,” and what follows. And it seems to me that this man — who takes in the whole of truth in this one book of his, and puts the title The True Discourse on his own book against us — did not listen carefully to Plato either. For the sentence in the Timaeus that says “whenever the gods purify the earth with water” has shown that the earth, when it is purified with the waters, has fewer evils than it had in the time before the purifying. And this is what we say, in agreement with Plato — that evils are at some times fewer — because of the sentence in the Theaetetus which says that evils “cannot be destroyed out of men.” [o]

I do not know how, while he grants that there is providence — at least as far as the words of this book go — he can say that evils are neither more nor fewer but as it were fixed in number, doing away with a most excellent teaching: that wickedness is without limit, and that evils are by their own account unbounded. And it seems to follow, from evils never having been and never being and never going to be either fewer or more, that just as, on the view of those who keep the world indestructible, the balance of the elements comes about from providence, which does not let any one of them get the upper hand, so that the world will not perish — so a kind of providence stands over evils, which are just so many, to keep them from becoming either more or fewer. [r]

But Celsus’ argument about evils is refuted in another way as well, from the philosophers who investigated the subject of goods and evils and showed from history that at first the prostitutes stayed outside the city and wore masks over their faces while they hired themselves out to any who wanted them; that afterward, growing contemptuous, they put the masks aside, and, since the laws did not allow them to enter the cities, they still stayed outside them; and that as the corruption grew greater by the day, they dared to come into the cities as well. Chrysippus tells this in his Introduction to Goods and Evils. From this too it can be gathered that evils become both more and fewer: the men called “ambiguous” once stood out in the open, taking the passive part and the active part alike, slaves to the cravings of the men who came in to them, and later the market inspectors drove them out. And of countless evils that have come into human life from the spilling out of wickedness one may say that formerly they did not exist. At any rate the most ancient histories, for all the countless charges they bring against wrongdoers, know nothing of men who do the unspeakable.

After these arguments and others like them, how does Celsus not cut a ridiculous figure, supposing that evils could never become more or fewer? For even if the nature of the whole is one and the same, it does not at all follow that the coming-to-be of evils is always the same. Take some particular man: his nature is one and the same, and yet things are not always the same with the ruling part of his mind, and with his reason, and with his actions. There was a time when he had not yet taken on reason; and a time when, along with reason, he had taken on wickedness, and that wickedness was spreading further or less far; and there are times when he has been turned toward virtue and is making more progress or less, and now and then even arrives at virtue itself, which comes to him through more contemplation or through less. [v]

In the same way, and still more, one may speak of the nature of the whole: even if it is one and the same in kind, the same things do not always happen in it, nor even things of the same sort. There are not always good harvests, and not always failed ones; not always downpours, and not always droughts. And in the same way there are no fixed seasons of fruitfulness or of barrenness for the better souls, nor for the spreading of the worse ones further or less far. And the argument about evils is a necessary one for those who want to get everything as exact as they can: evils do not stay always the same, because of the providence that either preserves what is on earth or purges it by floods and by burnings — and perhaps not only what is on earth, but what is in the whole world, when it needs cleansing, once the wickedness in it has become great.

After this Celsus says: “What the coming-to-be of evils is, is not easy for a man who has not done philosophy to know; but it is enough to say to the multitude that evils are not from God, but attach to matter and make their home among mortal things. The circuit of mortal things is the same from beginning to end, and by the appointed cycles the same things must always have come to be, and be, and be going to be.” Celsus observes that the coming-to-be of evils is not easy for a man who has not done philosophy to know — as though a man who does philosophy could know where they come from easily, while a man who does not could not see it easily, though with hard work he could still come to know it. To this we say that where evils come from is not easy for a man who has done philosophy to know either, and that perhaps it is not even possible for such men to know it cleanly, unless by God’s inspiration it is made plain what evils are, and shown how they came to be, and understood in what way they will be made to disappear. [y]

At any rate, since ignorance of God is itself among the evils, and since not knowing the way God is to be served and reverenced is the greatest of evils, certainly — even by Celsus’ own account — some of the men who have done philosophy have not known this, as is clear from the different schools of philosophy. And in our judgment no one will be able to know where evils come from who has not recognized that it is an evil to think reverence for God is kept safe in the laws established under the constitutions people commonly have in mind. And no one will be able to know it who has not gone into what is said about the one called the devil and about his angels — who he was before he came to be a devil, and how he came to be one, and what the reason was that those called his angels revolted along with him. Anyone who intends to know this must also have gone more exactly into the subject of demons: that they are not, insofar as they are demons, things made by God, but only insofar as they are beings that possess reason; and from what starting point they came to be such, so that the ruling part of them subsists in the condition of demons. So if there is any subject at all among human inquiries that is hard for our nature to hunt down, the coming-to-be of evils may be placed among them.

Next, like a man who has something more secret to say about the coming-to-be of evils but keeps quiet about it and says only what suits the multitude, he says that it is enough to say to the multitude about the coming-to-be of evils that “evils are not from God, but attach to matter and make their home among mortal things.” Now it is true that evils are not from God. According to our own Jeremiah it is clear that “out of the mouth of the Lord the evils and the good will not come.” But that matter, making its home among mortal things, is the cause of evils — that, in our judgment, is not true. For it is each man’s own ruling part that is the cause of the wickedness that arises in him, and that wickedness is what evil is; and the actions that come out of it are evils as well. And on a strict account nothing else, in our view, is evil. I know, though, that the argument needs much working out and building up — which can be done, by the grace of God enlightening the ruling part of the mind, for the man God judges worthy of the knowledge that belongs to this subject. [ab]