38
SHORT STUDIES.
they had erected a new superstition of their own,
which they maintained by the arts of common
charlatans, A belief, Celsus admitted, was not to
be abandoned because the profession of it was
ılangerous. A man with a soul in him longed
necessarily for the truth, loved God above all things,
and desired only to know what God was and what
God willed. But he must take his intellect along
with him, or he might fall into folly and extrava-
yance; and Celsus complained that the Christians
would neither reason nor listen to reason. ‘Inquire
nothing, they said. ‘Believe, and your faith will
save you. "Che world’s wisdom is evil, and the
world’s foolishness is insight.’
Their origin, according to Celsus, was tolerably
well known. "There were certain traditions common
50 all nations respecting the creation of the world.
These traditions Moses became acquainted with in
Koypt. Moses, who was probably a magician, in-
troduced into them variations of his own. From
Egypt he borrowel various religious rites. A
aumber of shepherds took him for their leader, and,
ander his guidance, they professcd a belief in one
God, whom they called ‘the Most High,’ or Adonai,
or God of Sabaoth, or of Heaven. By these names
ihey meant the Universe, or what the Greeks called