Chapter XLVII.

He represents, moreover, a statement of his own as if it were an answer to one of his questions, in which he asks:  “By what train of argument were you led to regard him as the Son of God?”  For he makes us answer that “we were won over to him, because248    The reading in the text is εἰ καὶ ἴσμεν; for which both Bohereau and De la Rue propose ἐπεὶ ἴσμεν, which has been adopted in the translation:  cf. ἐπεὶ ἐκολάσθη, infra. we know that his punishment was undergone to bring about the destruction of the father of evil.”  Now we were won over to His doctrine by innumerable other considerations, of which we have stated only the smallest part in the preceding pages; but, if God permit, we shall continue to enumerate them, not only while dealing with the so-called True Discourse of Celsus, but also on many other occasions.  And, as if we said that we consider Him to be the Son of God because He suffered punishment, he asks:  “What then? have not many others, too, been punished, and that not less disgracefully?”  And here Celsus acts like the most contemptible enemies of the Gospel, and like those who imagine that it follows as a consequence from our history of the crucified Jesus, that we should worship those who have undergone crucifixion!

Ἑαυτῷ δὲ λαμβάνει ὡς ἡμετέραν ἀπόκρισιν πρὸς πεῦσιν αὐτοῦ λεγομένην φήσαντος· Τίνι προσήχθητε λογισμῷ τοῦτον νομίζειν υἱὸν θεοῦ; Πεποίηκε γὰρ ἡμᾶς ἀποκρινομένους ὅτι τούτῳ προσήχθημεν, ἐπεὶ ἴσμεν τὴν κόλασιν αὐτοῦ ὑπὲρ καθαιρέσεως τοῦ πατρὸς τῆς κακίας γεγονυῖαν. Ἄλλοις γὰρ μυρίοις προσήχθημεν, ὧν πολλοστη μόριον ἐν τοῖς πρὸ τούτων ἐξεθέμεθα καὶ θεοῦ διδόντος ἐκθησόμεθα οὐ μόνον ἐν τοῖς πρὸς τὸν νομιζόμενον Κέλσου ἀληθῆ λόγον πραγματευόμενοι ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις μυρίοις. Καὶ ὡς ἡμῶν γε λεγόντων ὅτι υἱὸν αὐτὸν νομίζομεν θεοῦ, ἐπεὶ ἐκολάσθη, φησί· Τί οὖν; Οὐχὶ καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοὶ ἐκολάσθησαν, καὶ οὐχ ἧττον ἀγεννῶς; Ὅμοιον δ' ἐν τούτῳ ποιεῖ ὁ Κέλσος τοῖς ἀνδραποδωδεστάτοις τῶν ἐχθρῶν τοῦ λόγου καὶ οἰομένοις ὅτι ἀκολουθεῖ τῇ περὶ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἱστορίᾳ σταυρωθέντα τὸ σέβειν ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἐσταυρωμένους.