Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II:
City of God: Chapter 23

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

For in his book called ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, 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 p. 416 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 p. 417 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 p. 418 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.

Footnotes

Ex. 22.20.

Ps. 96.5.

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

Ps. 16.2.