Immediately after this, Celsus, assailing the contents of the first book
of Moses, which is entitled “Genesis,” asserts that “the Jews
accordingly endeavoured to derive their origin from the first race of
jugglers and deceivers,[611] appealing to the testimony of dark and
ambiguous words, whose meaning was veiled in obscurity, and which they
misinterpreted[612] to the unlearned and ignorant, and that, too, when
such a point had never been called in question during the long preceding
period.” Now Celsus appears to me in these words to have expressed very
obscurely the meaning which he intended to convey. It is probable,
indeed, that his obscurity on this subject is intentional, inasmuch as
he saw the strength of the argument which establishes the descent of the
Jews from their ancestors; while again, on the other hand, he wished not
to appear ignorant that the question regarding the Jews and their
descent was one that could not be lightly disposed of. It is certain,
however, that the Jews trace their genealogy back to the three fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the names of these individuals possess
such efficacy, when united with the name of God, that not only do those
belonging to the nation employ in their prayers to God, and in the
exorcising of demons, the words, “God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and
God of Jacob,” but so also do almost all those who occupy themselves
with incantations and magical rites. For there is found in treatises on
magic in many countries such an invocation of God, and assumption of the
divine name, as implies a familiar use of it by these men in their
dealings with demons. These facts, then—adduced by Jews and Christians
to prove the sacred character of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the
fathers of the Jewish race—appear to me not to have been altogether
unknown to Celsus, but not to have been distinctly set forth by him,
because he was unable to answer the argument which might be founded on
them.
Footnote 611:
ἀπὸ πρώτης σπορᾶς γοήτων καὶ πλάνων ἀνθρώπων.
Footnote 612:
παρεξηγούμενοι.