Chapter XXXV.

It is our practice, indeed, to make use of the words of the prophets, who demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ predicted by them, and who show from the prophetic writings the events in the Gospels regarding Jesus have been fulfilled.  But when Celsus speaks of “circles upon circles,” (he perhaps borrowed the expression) from the aforementioned heresy, which includes in one circle (which they call the soul of all things, and Leviathan) the seven circles of archontic demons, or perhaps it arises from misunderstanding the preacher, when he says:  “The wind goeth in a circle of circles, and returneth again upon its circles.”1383    Eccles. i. 6. (literally rendered).  [Modern science demonstrates this physical truth.]  The expression, too, “effluents of an earthly church and of circumcision,” was probably taken from the fact that the church on earth was called by some an effluent from a heavenly church and a better world; and that the circumcision described in the law was a symbol of the circumcision performed there, in a certain place set apart for purification.  The adherents of Valentinus, moreover, in keeping with their system of error,1384    κατὰ τὴν πεπλανηένην ἑαυτῶν σοφίαν. give the name of Prunicos to a certain kind of wisdom, of which they would have the woman afflicted with the twelve years’ issue of blood to be the symbol; so that Celsus, who confuses together all sorts of opinions—Greek, Barbarian, and Heretical—having heard of her, asserted that it was a power flowing forth from one Prunicos, a virgin.  The “living soul,” again, is perhaps mysteriously referred by some of the followers of Valentinus to the being whom they term the psychic1385    ψυχικὸν δημιουργόν. creator of the world; or perhaps, in contradistinction to a “dead” soul, the “living” soul is termed by some, not inelegantly,1386    οὐκ ἀγεννῶς. the soul of “him who is saved.”  I know nothing, however, of a “heaven which is said to be slain,” or of an “earth slaughtered by the sword,” or of many persons slain in order that they might live; for it is not unlikely that these were coined by Celsus out of his own brain.

Τὸ μὲν γὰρ χρῆσθαι προφητῶν λόγοις ἡμῶν ἐστι, τῶν παριστάντων Ἰησοῦν εἶναι τὸν προκεκηρυγμένον ὑπ' αὐτῶν Χριστὸν καὶ ἀποδεικνύντων ἐκ τῶν προφητικῶν τὰ ἐν τοῖς εὐαγγελίοις περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πληρωθέντα. Τὸ δὲ κύκλους ἐπὶ κύκλοις λέγειν τάχα μὲν καὶ τῆς προειρημένης ἐστὶν αἱρέσεως, κύκλῳ περιλαμβανούσης ἑνί, ἥν φασιν εἶναι τὴν τῶν ὅλων ψυχὴν καὶ Λευϊαθάν, τοὺς ἑπτὰ τῶν ἀρχοντικῶν κύκλους, τάχα δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἐκκλησιαστοῦ ἐστι παρά κουσμα λέγοντος· "Κυκλοῖ κυκλῶν πορεύεται τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ ἐπὶ κύκλους αὐτοῦ ἐπιστρέφει τὸ πνεῦμα." Τὸ δ' ἀπορροίας ἐκκλησίας ἐπιγείου καὶ περιτομῆς τάχα ἐλήφθη ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑπό τινων λέγεσθαι ἐκκλησίας τινὸς ἐπου ρανίου καὶ κρείττονος αἰῶνος ἀπόρροιαν εἶναι τὴν ἐπὶ γῆς ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ περιτομῆς τινος ἐν καθαρσίῳ τινὶ ἐκεῖ γεγενημένης σύμβολον εἶναι τὴν ἐν τῷ νόμῳ γεγραμμένην. Προυνικὸν δέ τινα σοφίαν οἱ ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου ὀνομάζουσι κατὰ τὴν πεπλανημένην ἑαυτῶν σοφίαν, ἧς σύμβολον εἶναι βούλονται καὶ δώδεκα ἔτεσιν αἱμορροοῦσαν· ἣν παρακούσας ὁ ἅμα πάντα φύρων τὰ Ἑλλήνων καὶ βαρβάρων καὶ τῶν ἐν ταῖς αἱρέσεσιν εἶπε τό· Προυνικοῦ τινος δύναμιν ῥέουσαν παρθένου. Ψυχὴ δὲ ζῶσα τάχα μὲν ἐν ἀπορρήτοις λέλεκται παρά τισι τῶν ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου εἰς τὸν ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὀνομαζόμενον "ψυχικὸν δημιουργόν", τάχα δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἀντιδιαστολὴν ψυχῆς νεκρᾶς ἡ ζῶσα ψυχὴ οὐκ ἀγεννῶς παρά τισι λέλεκται ἡ τοῦ σῳζομένου. Σφαζόμενον δ' οὐκ οἶδα οὐρανὸν λελεγμένον ἢ γῆν σφαζομένην μαχαίρᾳ καὶ πολλοὺς σφαζομένους, ἵνα ζήσωσι, καὶ οὐκ ἀπεικός ἐστιν ἀφ' ἑαυτοῦ ταῦτα κεκομικέναι τὸν Κέλσον.