But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the
mother of Jesus, and saying that “when she was pregnant she was turned
out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having
been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier
named Panthera;” and let us see whether those who have blindly concocted
these fables about the adultery of the virgin with Panthera, and her
rejection by the carpenter, did not invent these stories to overturn His
miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost: for they could have falsified
the history in a different manner, on account of its extremely
miraculous character, and not have admitted, as it were against their
will, that Jesus was born of no ordinary human marriage. It was to be
expected, indeed, that those who would not believe the miraculous birth
of Jesus would invent some falsehood. And their not doing this in a
credible manner, but [their] preserving the fact that it was not by
Joseph that the Virgin conceived Jesus, rendered the falsehood very
palpable to those who can understand and detect such inventions. Is it
at all agreeable to reason, that he who dared to do so much for the
human race, in order that, as far as in him lay, all the Greeks and
Barbarians, who were looking for divine condemnation, might depart from
evil, and regulate their entire conduct in a manner pleasing to the
Creator of the world, should not have had a miraculous birth, but one
the vilest and most disgraceful of all? And I will ask of them as
Greeks, and particularly of Celsus, who either holds or not the
sentiments of Plato, and at any rate quotes them, whether He who sends
souls down into the bodies of men, degraded Him who was to dare such
mighty acts, and to teach so many men, and to reform so many from the
mass of wickedness in the world, to a birth more disgraceful than any
other, and did not rather introduce Him into the world through a lawful
marriage? Or is it not more in conformity with reason, that every soul,
for certain mysterious reasons (I speak now according to the opinion of
Pythagoras, and Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus frequently names), is
introduced into a body, and introduced according to its deserts and
former actions? It is probable, therefore, that this soul also which
conferred more benefit by its residence in the flesh than that of many
men (to avoid prejudice, I do not say “all”), stood in need of a body
not only superior to others, but invested with all excellent qualities.