Against Celsus 2.20

After this let us see how he speaks: “He foretold these things,” he says, “being a god, and what was foretold had to happen in any case. A god, then, led his own disciples and prophets, with whom he ate and drank, into this, so that they became impious and unholy, when he above all ought to have done good to all people, and especially to those who shared his table. Or would a man who had shared a table with another no longer plot against him, whereas one who feasted with a god became his plotter? And what is still more absurd, the god himself plotted against those who shared his table, making them traitors and ungodly.” Since you wish me to answer even Celsus's arguments that seem to me trivial, we shall say the following to this too. Celsus thinks that what is declared by some foreknowledge happens because it was declared; we do not grant this, but say that the one who declared it is not the cause of what will be because he foretold that it would happen; rather what will be, which would have been even if it had not been declared, provided the foreknower with the reason for foretelling it. And this whole matter lies in the foreknowledge of the one who declares it: when it is possible for a certain thing to happen and possible also for it not to happen, one or the other of them will be the case. And we do not say that the foreknower, taking away the possibility of its happening or not happening, says something like this: “This will certainly be, and it is impossible for it to happen otherwise.” This applies to every foreknowledge of something that depends on us, whether in the divine Scriptures or in the histories of the Greeks. And what the dialecticians call the “idle argument,” which is a sophism, will not be a sophism as far as Celsus is concerned, but by sound reason it is a sophism. So that this may be understood, from Scripture I shall use the prophecies about Judas, or our Savior's foreknowledge of him as the one who would betray him; and from Greek history the oracle to Laius, granting for the present that it is true, since this does not harm the argument. About Judas, then, it is said in the hundred and eighth psalm, spoken in the person of the Savior, which begins: “O God, do not pass over my praise in silence; for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful has been opened against me.” And if you observe what is written in the psalm, you will find that, just as he was foreknown as the one who would betray the Savior, so he was also the cause of the betrayal and deserved, because of his wickedness, the curses spoken in the prophecy. For let him suffer these things, “because,” it says, “he did not remember to show mercy, and persecuted a man poor and needy.” So he was able to remember “to show mercy” and not to persecute the one he persecuted; but though he was able, he did not do so, but betrayed him, so as to deserve the curses against him in the prophecy. And against the Greeks we shall use what was said in this way to Laius, whether the tragedian recorded its very words or their equivalent. It is said to him by the one who foreknew what would be: “Do not sow the furrow of children against the will of the gods; for if you beget a child, your offspring will kill you, and your whole house will wade through blood.” In this, then, it is clearly shown that it was possible for Laius not to sow “the furrow of children”; for the oracle would not have commanded him what was not possible. But it was also possible to sow, and neither of the two was compelled. It followed for him who did not guard against sowing “the furrow of children” that, from having sown, he suffered the tragedy of Oedipus, Jocasta, and their sons. So too the so-called idle argument, being a sophism, runs like this when put hypothetically to a sick man, deterring him, as a sophism, from using the physician for his health. The argument goes thus: “If it is fated for you to recover from the illness, you will recover whether you call in the physician or not; but if it is fated for you not to recover, you will not recover whether you call in the physician or not. Either it is fated for you to recover or it is fated for you not to recover. So you call in the physician in vain.” But this argument is wittily met by one like it: “If it is fated for you to beget children, you will beget them whether you lie with a woman or not; but if it is fated for you not to beget children, you will not beget them whether you lie with a woman or not. Either it is fated for you to beget children or not to beget them. So you lie with a woman in vain.” For just as in this case, since it is impossible and cannot be that one who does not lie with a woman begets children, lying with a woman is not undertaken in vain, so, if recovery from illness comes by way of medicine, the physician is necessarily called in, and “you call in the physician in vain” is false. We have brought in all this because of what the most wise Celsus put forward when he said: “Being a god he foretold it, and what was foretold had to happen in any case.” For if he takes “in any case” to mean “by necessity,” we shall not grant it to him, since it was possible also for it not to happen. But if he means “in any case” in the sense of “it will be,” which may well be true even if it is possible for it not to happen, this does not harm the argument. Nor did it follow from Jesus' truly foretelling what concerned the betrayer or the one who denied that he himself became the cause of their impious and unholy act. For he who, as we believe, knew “what was in man,” saw his wicked character and what he would dare from being a lover of money and from not holding firmly the right convictions about his teacher, and among much else he said: “He who has dipped his hand with me in the dish, he will betray me.”