A comparative study of the principles of piety in Celsus and their practice in the Marcan Christ.

One cant say there is much love lost between Celsus and Christianity, but it is of some interest to
examine where the stream of thought of Celsus and the metaphysical delta of proto-orthodox
Christianity diverge in their conception of piety or true religion. In this paper we will try to penetrate
into the greater issue by investigating a smaller subcase: that of the relationship between the Celsan
and Marcan notions of piety. This is to be carried out by first carefully analysing the true word of
Celsus to gather a sheaf of properties characteristic of what Celsus would see as being intrinsic to the
nature of piety. In the second section we will scrutinize the acts of the Marcan Christ in the light of the
insight we have reaped in the first part.

Having set ourselves two clear targets we can return to investigating the question of what attributes
Celsus would ascribe to the idea of piety. It is striking how intimately the two worlds of true religion and
reason coincide within the Celsan worldview. This rationalistic predisposition comes forward
particularly strongly when Celsus asks the rhetorical questions why is it an evil to have both the
reality and appearance of wisdom? What hindrance does this offer to the
knowledge of God? Why should it not rather be an assistance, by which one might arrive at the
truth? . Celsus even indirectly elucidates his vision of the role of reason in deciding matters of faith
when he proofs the impossibility of the incarnation of god as a human , unknowingly also proving to
us that he does not see it as beyond the human mind to decisively affirm or deny theological statements
on the ground of pure reason. Taking a more personal approach to the same theme Celsus exhorts us to
follow reason and a rational guide in accepting doctrines on the ground that anyone who believes
people without so doing is certain to be deceived . As Celsus has previously used the word doctrine to
refer to Judaism it seems obvious that the plural doctrines refers to the complete spectrum of sects, in
light of which the sentence seems to make the harsh claim that true religion is unattainable without
reason and by extension unattainable for individuals incapable of reason. These claims implicitly made
explicit by a central line of attack in Celsus polemic against Christianity which amounts to calling
Christians cretins at a rate of about once every three paragraphs, as may be seen in the following brief
summation: only foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and
women, and children, of whom the teachers of the divine word wish to make converts. . To summarise
the preceding sentences Celsus seeks to underline the necessity of reason in guarding the gates of the
mind against false faith and opening them up for true religion.
Having treated the Celsan relation between true religion and pure reason at great length we will now
move our minds from theological matters and discuss what Celsan piety can mean for you as a social
animal. Celsus does not present piety as exclusively dwelling in the society of the mind but as something
which actively dictates a certain role in the public sphere and entails a certain tolerant conservatism in
regard to established institutions. Reasoning that whatever prosperity may have risen in a given
dominion has come to be through the agency of certain superintending spirits And whatever is done
among each nation in this way would be rightly done, wherever it was agreeable to the wishes (of the
superintending powers), while it would be an act of impiety to get rid of the institutions established
from the beginning . This notion of tolerant cultural conservatism fits tightly into Hellenistic ecumenism
and also establishes why Celsus can scamper some condescending praise for the barbarian Jews .
Furthermore on a nontrivial level this semimystical justification of tradition provides a satisfying
explanation as to why Celsus can quote Homer as an authority on kingship , despite the fact that Homer
while a pervasive cultural influence was no indisputable moral authority . It must further be noted that
the notions of communitarianism and cultural conservatism seems to be fundamental to the Celsan
notion of piety as Celsus considers them to be precondition for reason and transitively to be the ground
without which there would no longer remain among men any of the glory of your religion or of the
true wisdom . This argument is also the cornerstone on which his communitarian admonitions to
labour with [your king] in war and take office implicitly and explicitly rest. Having determined that
a tolerant traditionalism is an essential ingredient of Celsan recipe for piety and prosperity, we must
now briefly note that for all his idealistic spiritual ecumenism Celsus does maintain a chauvinistic
undercurrent. Briefly put, while God is the God of all alike the Greeks are better able to judge the
value of what the barbarians have discovered, and to establish the doctrines and put them into practice
by virtue . In summary we have established that the Celsan notion of piety is an alloy of a rationalistic
attitude to faith with a devotion to the stable state.

Now that we have obtained a satisfactory overview of the main characteristics of Celsan piety we finally
have a vantage point from which we may judge the Marcan Christ through the eyes of Celsus. Whereas
one may instinctively wish to emphasize the incommensurability of the worldviews of the Marcan Christ
it would be stimulating to hit of our examination with a bit of ambiguity. Relatively early in the gospel
Jesus gets into the following brief dialogue Some Pharisees came asking, Is it lawful to
divorce ? What did Moses command Moses permitted a certificate of divorce
because your hearts were hard Moses wrote you this law, what God has joined together, let no
one separate. . It is an interesting question if we along with Celsus pretend to grant that the
scriptures may be true . We are then faced with the intriguing question of whether Jesus is acting in a
pious manner according to Celsus. On the one hand if it was not originally in the divine will that divorce
be legalised and as God is good according to Celsus what god truly wills must be good as well and thus
proper to carry out. Yet in upsetting the authority of the Pharisees or more importantly putting doubt
into the integrity of the Pentateuch, Jesus might be tearing apart the social fabric in his attempt to patch
up a small hole. Thereby destabilising the establishment that guarantees peace, prosperity and the
possible development of true religion. There is no clear way out of the question of whether Jesus is
being pious or impious in his response, which decisively demonstrates that we must leave any
preconceptions regarding opposition between the Marcan and Celsan notions of piety at the door when
we are doing proper textual analysis. Having made an ambiguous measure of the social Jesus we must
now at least briefly evaluate the intellectual Jesus. The teaching of Jesus seems to be almost explicitly
irational in its claim that anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never
enter it. Something that is antithetical to the rationalist piety of Celsus whom half counts children
among the silly, and the mean, and the stupid, with women and children.
Succinctly Jesus runs counter to Celsan piety but has an ambiguous score on the social scale.

In conclusion we may say that Celsan piety is a blend of a rationalistic intellectual faith with a devotion
to the state that makes this faith possible. Jesus would be judged by Celsan piety to be intellectually
impious in his irrational pronouncements but there is no watertight way of ruling if Jesus behaviour as a
general troublemaker is pious or impious under Christian assumptions.