Chapter 23.–Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning Christ.

For in his book called ek logion philosophias, in which he collects and
comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the gods
concerning divine things, he says–I give his own words as they have
been translated from the Greek: “To one who inquired what god he
should propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo
replied in the following verses.” Then the following words are given
as those of Apollo: “You will probably find it easier to write lasting
characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air,
than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she has
polluted herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish
deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned by
right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent death.”
Then after these verses of Apollo (which we have given in a Latin
version that does not preserve the metrical form), he goes on to say:
“In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption of the
Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians,
recognized God.” See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the
preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his
explanation of Apollo’s verses, in which he says that Christ was put to
death by right-minded or just judges,–in other words, that He deserved
to die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding Christ on
the lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it
or possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with Porphyry’s
opinions or with other oracles, we shall in a little have something to
say. In this passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the
interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing Christ to be worthy
of the most shameful death. He should have listened, then, to this God
of the Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that God says, “He
that sacrificeth to any other god save to the Lord alone shall be
utterly destroyed.” But let us come to still plainer expressions, and
hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of the Jews is. Apollo,
he says, when asked whether word, i.e., reason, or law is the better
thing, replied in the following verses. Then he gives the verses of
Apollo, from which I select the following as sufficient: “God, the
Generator, and the King prior to all things, before whom heaven and
earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell tremble, and the
deities themselves are afraid, for their law is the Father whom the
holy Hebrews honor.” In this oracle of his god Apollo, Porphyry avowed
that the God of the Hebrews is so great that the deities themselves are
afraid before Him. I am surprised, therefore, that when God said, He
that sacrificeth to other gods shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry
himself was not afraid lest he should be destroyed for sacrificing to
other gods.

This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ,
oblivious, as it were, of that contumely of his of which we have just
been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only while
asleep, and recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved
praise, when they awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some
marvellous thing passing belief, he says, “What we are going to say
will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that
Christ was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish
his memory: that the Christians, however, are polluted, contaminated,
and involved in error. And many other such things,” he says, “do the
gods say against the Christians.” Then he gives specimens of the
accusations made, as he says, by the gods against them, and then goes
on: “But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a God, she
replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and
that if it has been severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you
refer to is that of a man foremost in piety: they worship it because
they mistake the truth.” To this so-called oracular response he adds
the following words of his own: “Of this very pious man, then, Hecate
said that the soul, like the souls of other good men, was after death
dowered with immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance
worship it. And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the
oracle of the goddess replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to
torments, but the souls of the pious abide in heaven. And the soul you
inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls which
were not fated to receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the
knowledge of immortal Jove. Such souls are therefore hated by the
gods; for they who were fated not to receive the gifts of the gods, and
not to know God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you
speak of. He himself, however, was good, and heaven has been opened to
him as to other good men. You are not, then, to speak evil of him, but
to pity the folly of men: and through him men’s danger is imminent.”

Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed
by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians, or were
uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar design,–that is
to say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their
vituperation of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close
the way of eternal salvation, which is identical with Christianity?
For they believe that they are by no means counter working their own
hurtful craft by promoting belief in Christ, so long as their
calumniation of Christians is also accepted; for they thus secure that
even the man who thinks well of Christ declines to become a Christian,
and is therefore not delivered from their own rule by the Christ he
praises. Besides, their praise of Christ is so contrived that
whosoever believes in Him as thus represented will not be a true
Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity, and
not also the divinity of Christ, and will thus be precluded from
salvation and from deliverance out of the meshes of these devilish
lies. For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate’s praises of
Christ than with Apollo’s calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ
was put to death by right-minded judges, implying that He was
unrighteous. Hecate says that He was a most pious man, but no more.
The intention of both is the same, to prevent men from becoming
Christians, because if this be secured, men shall never be rescued from
their power. But it is incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on
those who believe in these pretended oracles against the Christians,
first of all, if they can, to bring Apollo and Hecate to the same mind
regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both praise Him.
And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would
notwithstanding repudiate the testimony of demons, whether favorable or
adverse to Christ. But when our adversaries find a god and goddess of
their own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other
vituperating Him, they can certainly give no credence, if they have any
judgment, to mere men who blaspheme the Christians.

When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself
to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in
error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error. But before
I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give
Himself to the Christians to involve them in error, did He do so
willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how is He righteous? If
against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes
of this error. “There are,” he says,” in a certain place very small
earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil demons. The wise men of
the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from the
oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very
wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them rather to worship the
celestial gods, and especially to adore God the Father. This,” he
said, “the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the
soul to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But the ignorant
and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favors from the gods,
nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods and their
messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to
hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship
God, they refuse to do those things by which alone God is worshipped.
For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing; but
for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other
virtues, and thus to make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring
into and imitating His nature. For inquiry,” says he, “purifies and
imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him.” He is right in so
far as he proclaims God the Father, and the conduct by which we should
worship Him. Of such precepts the prophetic books of the Hebrews are
full, when they praise or blame the life of the saints. But in
speaking of the Christians he is in error, and caluminates them as much
as is desired by the demons whom he takes for gods, as if it were
difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and shameful actions
which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods,
and to compare with these things what is heard in our churches, and
what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison to conclude
where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a
diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and
vain a lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather than hated the
demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the
Hebrew sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the
holy angels of heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our
pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most blessed fellow-citizens. For
in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this menace,
as in a voice of thunder: “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto
the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” [1299] And that no one
might suppose that this prohibition extends only to the very wicked
demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and
inferior,–for even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the
Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown
in the psalm where it is said, “For all the gods of the nations are
demons,” [1300] –that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to
these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all
or some of the celestials, it was immediately added, “save unto the
Lord alone.” [1301] The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this
renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew
people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and
unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this law it is
written, “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord alone,
he shall be utterly destroyed.” What need is there to seek further
proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing? Seek, we need
not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but
what need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are
thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that
sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is
one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance of
that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol. Let this
be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient
soul cut off. “He that sacrifices,” He says, not because He needs
anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession. Hence the
Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, “I have said to the Lord, Thou
art my God, for Thou needest not my good.” [1302] For we ourselves,
who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy sacrifice, and it
is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to
the faithful, as we have explained in the preceding books. For through
the prophets the oracles of God declared that the sacrifices which the
Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would cease, and that
the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one
sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now see accomplished, we have
made such selections as seemed suitable to our purpose in this work.
And therefore, where there is not this righteousness whereby the one
supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace, so that it
sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of this
obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the
vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so
also the community and people of the just, live by faith, which works
by love, that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and
his neighbor as himself,–there, I say, there is not an assemblage
associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of
interests. But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our
definition be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there
is no people there can be no republic.

[1299] Ex. xxii. 20.

[1300] Ps. xcvi. 5.

[1301] Augustin here warns his readers against a possible misunderstanding of the Latin word for alone (soli), which might be rendered “the sun.”

[1302] Ps. xvi. 2.