The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire Part 31

[61] Paus. ix, 39, 5-14, Frazer's translation.

[62] Paus. viii, 8, 3 (Frazer). _ton men de es t theion hekonton tois eireuenois chresometha_.

[63] The word of Luke 2, 9.

[64] Artemidorus Dald. ii, 70.

[65] Artem. Dald. iii, 66.

[66] Marcus, i, 17; George Long's rendering, here as elsewhere somewhat literal, but valuable as leaving the sharp edges on the thought of the Greek, which get rubbed off in some translations. See Tertullian, _de Anima_, cc. 44 and following, for a discussion of dreams, referring to the five volumes of Hermippus of Berytus for the whole story of them.

[67] Artem. Dald. ii, pref., _mega phrono_.

[68] Artem. Dald. ii, 70. Cf. v. pref., _aneu skenes ka tragosias_.

[69] Artem. Dald. i, pref.

[70] A very different cla.s.sification in Tertullian, _de Anima_, 47, 48.

Dreams may be due to demons, to G.o.d, the nature of the soul or ecstasy.

[71] Artem. Dald. i, 4.

[72] Artem. Dald. iv, pref.

[73] See Augustine, _C.D._ xviii, 18, _Apuleius in libris quos Asini aurei t.i.tulo inscripsit_. In the printed texts, it is generally called the _Metamorphoses_.

[74] _Apol._ 24.

[75] _Apol._ 23.

[76] _Apol._ 72; _Flor._ 18.

[77] _Flor._ 20.

[78] _Apol._ 98. Cf. _Pa.s.sio Perpetuae_, c. 13, _et caepit Pirpetua Graece c.u.m eis loqui_, says Saturus; Perpetua uses occasional Greek words herself in recording her visions.

[79] _Apol._ 43. Cf. Plutarch cited on p. 101.

[80] _Apol._ 55, 56. Cf. _Florida_, 1, an ornamental pa.s.sage on pious usage.

[81] _Apol._ 90. Many restorations have been attempted.

[82] e.g. Tertullian, _de Anima_, 57, _Ostanes et Typhon et Darda.n.u.s et Damigeron et Nectabis et Berenice_.

[83] Much of this material Apuleius has taken from the _Timaeus_, 40 D to 43 A.

[84] Cf. Lactantius, _Inst.i.t._ ii, _de origine erroris_, c. 5.

Tertullian, _ad Natt._ ii, 2. Cicero, _N.D._ ii, 15, 39-44.

[85] _de deo Socr._ 3, 124. Cf. the account (quoted below) of what was experienced in initiation, which suggests some acquaintance with mystical trance--the confines of death and the sudden bright light look very like it.

[86] _de deo Socr._ 4, 126.

[87] _de deo Socr._ 5, 130-132.

[88] _de deo Socr._ 6, 132. Cf. Tert. _Apol._ 22, 23, 24, on nature and works of demons, on lines closely similar.

[89] _de deo Socr._ 7, 136.

[90] See chapter vi. p. 188.

[91] _de deo Socr._ 11, 144.

[92] _de deo Socr._ 15.

[93] The story of Lamachus "our high-souled leader," now "buried in the entire element," would make anyone wish to become a brigand, Sainte-Beuve said. Here one must regretfully omit the robbers' cave altogether.

[94] _Metam._ xi, 3, 4. Apuleius had a fancy for flowing hair.

[95] _Metam._ xi, 5.

[96] _Metam._ xi. 8 ff.

[97] _Metam._ xi, 15, _da nomen santae huic militiae cuius ...

sacramento_, etc.

[98] Tertullian remarks that pagan rituals, unlike Christian baptism, owe much to pomp and expense; _de Bapt._ 2. _Mentior si non e contrario idolorum sollemnia vel arcana de suggestu et apparatu deque sumptu fidem et auctoritatem sibi extruunt_.

[99] Augustine, _C.D._ xviii, 18; and cf. _ib._ viii, (on the _de deo Socr._); and Lactantius, v. 3.

[100] Capitolinus _v. Albini_, 12.

{239}

CHAPTER VIII

CELSUS

_Deliquit, opinor, divina doctrina ex Judaea potius quam ex Graecia oriens. Erravit et Christus piscatores citius quam sophistam ad praeconium emittens,_--TERTULLIAN, _de Anima_, 3.

At the beginning of the last chapter reference was made to the spread of Christianity in the second century, and then a brief survey was given of the position of the old religion without reference to the new.

When one realizes the different habits of mind represented by the men there considered, the difficulties with which Christianity had to contend become more evident and more intelligible. Lucian generally ignored it, only noticing it to laugh at its folly and to pa.s.s on--it was too inconspicuous to be worth attack. To the others--the devout of the old religion, whose fondest thoughts were for the past, and for whom religion was largely a ritual, sanctified by tradition and by fancy,--the Christian faith offered little beyond the negation of all they counted dear. We are happily in possession of fragments of an anti-Christian work of the day, written by a man philosophic and academic in temperament, but sympathetic with the followers of the religion of his fathers--fragments only, but enough to show how Christianity at once provoked the laughter, incensed the patriotism, and offended the religious tastes of educated people.

It was for a man called Celsus that Lucian wrote his book upon the prophet Alexander and his shrine at Abonoteichos, and it has been suggested that Lucian's friend and the Celsus, who wrote the famous _True Word_, may have been one and the same. The evidence is carefully worked out by Keim,[1] but it is not very strong, especially as some two dozen men of the name are known to the historians of the first three centuries of our era. Origen himself knew little of Celsus--hardly more than we can gather from the quotations he made from the book {240} in refuting it. From a close study of his occasional hints at contemporary history, Keim puts Celsus' book down to the latter part of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, or, more closely, to the year 178 A.D.[2] Celsus' general references to Christianity and to paganism imply that period. He writes under the pressure of the barbarian inroads on the Northern frontier, of the Parthians in the East and of the great plague. His main concern is the Roman State, shaken by all these misfortunes, and doubly threatened by the pa.s.sive disaffection of Christians within its borders.[3] From what Turk and Mongol meant to Europe in the Middle Ages and may yet mean to us, we may divine how men of culture and patriotism felt about the white savages coming down upon them from the North.