After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit
upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is
not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while
concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that
the world is uncreated. For, maintaining that there have been, from all
eternity, many conflagrations and many deluges, and that the flood which
lately took place in the time of Deucalion is comparatively modern, he
clearly demonstrates to those who are able to understand him, that, in
his opinion, the world was uncreated. But let this assailant of the
Christian faith tell us by what arguments he was compelled to accept the
statement that there have been many conflagrations and many cataclysms,
and that the flood which occurred in the time of Deucalion, and the
conflagration in that of Phæthon, were more recent than any others. And
if he should put forward the dialogues of Plato [as evidence] on these
subjects, we shall say to him that it is allowable for us also to
believe that there resided in the pure and pious soul of Moses, who
ascended above all created things, and united himself to the Creator of
the universe, and who made known divine things with far greater
clearness than Plato, or those other wise men [who lived] among the
Greeks and Romans, a spirit which was divine. And if he demand of us our
reasons for such a belief, let him first give grounds for his own
unsupported assertions, and then we shall show that this view of ours is
the correct one.