Celsus Used Against Marcion?
Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:06 pm
Celsus in the next place, citing (ἐκτιθέμενος) from history other than that of the divine record, those passages which bear upon the claims to great antiquity put forth by many nations, as the Athenians, and Egyptians, and Arcadians, and Phrygians, who assert that certain individuals have existed among them who sprang from the earth, and who each adduce proOfs of these assertions, says: [4.36]In the next place, mixing up together various heresies, and not observing that some statements are the utterances of one heretical sect, and others of a different one, he brings forward the objections which we raised against Marcion. And, probably, having heard them from some paltry and ignorant individuals, he assails the very arguments which combat them, but not in a way that shows much intelligence. Quoting then things against Marcion, and not observing that it is against him that he is speaking, he asks:
Εἶτ' οἶμαι φύρων αἱρέσεις αἱρέσεσι καὶ μὴ ἐπισημειού μενος ὅτι τάδε μὲν ἄλλης αἱρέσεώς ἐστι τάδε δὲ ἄλλης, τὰ πρὸς Μαρκίωνα ὑφ' ἡμῶν ἀπορούμενα προφέρει, τάχα καὶ τούτων παρακούσας ἀπό τινων εὐτελῶς καὶ ἰδιωτικῶς ἐγκαλούντων λόγῳ, οὐ μὴν πάνυ συνετῶς. Ἐκτιθέμενος οὖν τὰ κατὰ Μαρκίωνος λεγόμενα καὶ μὴ ἐπισημειωσάμενος ὅτι πρὸς αὐτὸν λέγει φησί·
Celsus, moreover, sneers at the "hatred" of Esau (to which, I suppose, he refers) against Jacob, although he was a man who, according to the Scriptures, is acknowledged to have been wicked; and not clearly citing (ἐκτιθέμενος) the story of Simeon and Levi, who sallied out (on the She-chemites) on account of the insult offered to their sister, who had been violated by the son of the Shechemite king, he inveighs against their conduct. [4.46]
Now Celsus here calumniates and falsities what is written in the book of Genesis to the following effect: "And the LORD God, seeing that the wickedness of men upon the earth was increasing, and that every one in his heart carefully meditated to do evil continually, was grieved He had made man upon the earth. And God meditated in His heart, and said, I will destroy man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air, because I am grieved that I made them;" quoting (ἐκτιθέμενος) words which are not written in Scripture, as if they conveyed the meaning of what was actually written [6.53]
For, quoting (ἐκτιθέμενος) the sayings of the Stoics, and affecting not to know the doctrine about "things indifferent," he thinks that the divine nature was cast amid pollution, and was stained either by being in the body of a woman, until a body was formed around it, or by assuming a body. [6.73]