In order to show that he had read the book of Genesis, Celsus rejects
the story of the dove, although unable to adduce any reason which might
prove it to be a fiction. In the next place, as his habit is, in order
to put the narrative in a more ridiculous light, he converts the “raven”
into a “crow,” and imagines that Moses so wrote, having recklessly
altered the accounts related of the Grecian Deucalion; unless perhaps he
regards the narrative as not having proceeded from Moses, but from
_several_ individuals, as appears from his employing the _plural_ number
in the expressions, “falsifying and recklessly altering the story of
Deucalion,”[660] as well as from the words, “For _they_ did not expect,
I suppose, that these things would come to light.” But how should they,
who gave their Scriptures to the _whole_ nation, not expect that they
would come to light, and who predicted, moreover, that this religion
should be proclaimed to _all_ nations? Jesus declared, “The kingdom of
God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof;”[661] and in uttering these words to the Jews, what
other meaning did He intend to convey than this, viz. that He Himself
should, through His divine power, bring forth into light the whole of
the Jewish Scriptures, which contain the mysteries of the kingdom of
God? If, then, they peruse the Theogonies of the Greeks, and the stories
about the twelve gods, they impart to them an air of dignity, by
investing them with an allegorical signification; but when they wish to
throw contempt upon our biblical narratives, they assert that they are
fables, clumsily invented for infant children!
Footnote 660:
παραχαράττοντες καὶ ῥᾳδιουργοῦντες.
Footnote 661:
Cf. Matt. xxi. 43.