Chapter LXVI.

Now here Celsus appears to me to have committed a great error, in refusing to those who are sinners by nature, and also by habit, the possibility of a complete transformation, alleging that they cannot be cured even by punishment.  For it clearly appears that all men are inclined to sin by nature,569    [Let us note this in passing, as balancing some other expressions which could not have been used after the Pelagian controversy.] and some not only by nature but by practice, while not all men are incapable of an entire transformation.  For there are found in every philosophical sect, and in the word of God, persons who are related to have undergone so great a change that they may be proposed as a model of excellence of life.  Among the names of the heroic age some mention Hercules and Ulysses, among those of later times, Socrates, and of those who have lived very recently, Musonius.570    He is said to have been either a Babylonian or Tyrrhenian, and to have lived in the reign of Nero.  Cf. Philostratus, iv. 12.—Ruæus.  Not only against us, then, did Celsus utter the calumny, when he said that “it was manifest to every one that those who were given to sin by nature and habit could not by any means—even by punishments—be completely changed for the better,” but also against the noblest names in philosophy, who have not denied that the recovery of virtue was a possible thing for men.  But although he did not express his meaning with exactness, we shall nevertheless, though giving his words a more favourable construction, convict him of unsound reasoning.  For his words were:  “Those who are inclined to sin by nature and habit, no one could completely reform even by chastisement;” and his words, as we understood them, we refuted to the best of our ability.571    καὶ τὸ ἐξακουόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς λέξεως ὡς δυνατὸν ἡμῖν, ἀνετρέψαμεν.

Καὶ ἐν τούτοις δ' ὁ Κέλσος πάνυ μοι ἐσφάλθαι δοκεῖ, μὴ διδοὺς τοῖς ἁμαρτάνειν πεφυκόσι καὶ τοῦτο πράττειν εἰθισμένοις τὴν παντελῆ μεταβολήν, ὅστις οὐδ' ἀπὸ κολάσεων αὐτοὺς οἴεται θεραπεύεσθαι. Σαφῶς γὰρ φαίνεται ὅτι πάντες μὲν ἄνθρωποι πρὸς τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν πεφύκαμεν, ἔνιοι δὲ οὐ μόνον πεφύκασιν ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰθισμένοι εἰσὶν ἁμαρτάνειν· ἀλλ' οὐ πάντες ἄνθρωποι ἀπαράδεκτοί εἰσι τῆς παντελοῦς μεταβολῆς. Εἰσὶ γὰρ καὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν φιλοσοφίας αἵρεσιν καὶ κατὰ τὸν θεῖον λόγον οἱ τοσοῦτον μεταβεβληκέναι ἱστορούμενοι, ὥστε αὐτοὺς ἐκκεῖσθαι παράδειγμα τοῦ ἀρίστου βίου. Καὶ φέρουσί τινες ἡρώων μὲν τὸν Ἡρακλέα καὶ τὸν Ὀδυσσέα, τῶν δ' ὕστερον τὸν Σωκράτην, τῶν δὲ χθὲς καὶ πρώην γεγονότων τὸν Μουσώνιον. Οὐ μόνον οὖν καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐψεύσατο ὁ Κέλσος εἰπὼν παντί που δῆλον εἶναι τοὺς ἁμαρτάνειν πεφυκότας καὶ εἰθισμένους ὑπ' οὐδενὸς ἂν οὐδὲ κολαζομένους πάντῃ ἀχθῆναι πρὸς τὴν εἰς τὸ βέλτιον μεταβολήν, ἀλλὰ καὶ κατὰ τοὺς γενναίως φιλοσοφήσαντας καὶ μὴ ἀπογνόντας τὴν τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀνάληψιν εἶναι δυνατὸν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. Ἀλλ' εἰ καὶ μὴ μετὰ ἀκριβείας ὅπερ ἐβούλετο παρέστησεν, οὐδὲν ἧττον εὐγνωμόνως αὐτοῦ ἀκούοντες καὶ οὕτως αὐτὸν ἐλέγξομεν οὐχ ὑγιῶς λέγοντα. Εἶπε μὲν γάρ· Τοὺς πεφυκότας ἁμαρτάνειν καὶ εἰθισμένους οὐδεὶς ἂν οὐδὲ κολάζων πάντῃ μεταβάλοι· καὶ τὸ ἐξακουό μενον ἀπὸ τῆς λέξεως ὡς δυνατὸν ἡμῖν ἀνετρέψαμεν.