After this, Celsus next asserts that “Those herdsmen and shepherds who
followed Moses as their leader, had their minds deluded by vulgar
deceits, and so supposed that there was one God.” Let him show, then,
how, after this irrational departure, as he regards it, of the herdsmen
and shepherds from the worship of many gods, he himself is able to
establish the multiplicity of deities that are found amongst the Greeks,
or among those other nations that are called Barbarian. Let him
establish, therefore, the existence of Mnemosyne, the mother of the
Muses by Zeus; or of Themis, the parent of the Hours; or let him prove
that the ever naked Graces can have a real, substantial existence. But
he will not be able to show, from any actions of theirs, that these
fictitious representations[1163] of the Greeks, which have the
appearance of being invested with bodies, are [really] gods. And why
should the fables of the Greeks regarding the gods be true, any more
than those of the Egyptians for example, who in their language know
nothing of a Mnemosyne, mother of the nine Muses; nor of a Themis,
parent of the Hours; nor of a Euphrosyne, one of the Graces; nor of any
other of these names? How much more manifest (and how much better than
all these inventions!) is it that, convinced by what we see, in the
admirable order of the world, we should worship the Maker of it as the
one Author of one effect, and which, as being wholly in harmony with
itself, cannot on that account have been the work of many makers; and
that we should believe that the whole heaven is not held together by the
movements of many souls, for one is enough, which bears the whole of the
non-wandering[1164] sphere from east to west, and embraces within it all
things which the world requires, and which are not self-existing! For
all are parts of the world, while God is no part of the whole. But God
cannot be imperfect, as a part is imperfect. And perhaps profounder
consideration will show, that as God is not a part, so neither is He
properly the whole, since the whole is composed of parts; and reason
will not allow us to believe that the God who is over all is composed of
parts, each one of which cannot do what all the other parts can.
Footnote 1163:
ἀναπλάσματα.
Footnote 1164:
τὴν ἀπλανῆ.