And with these arguments I answer the Jew, not disbelieving, I who am a
Christian, Ezekiel and Isaiah, but being very desirous to show, on the
footing of our common belief, that this man is far more worthy of credit
than they are when He says that He beheld such a sight, and, as is
probable, related to His disciples the vision which He saw, and told
them of the voice which He heard. But another party might object, that
not all those who have narrated the appearance of the dove and the voice
from heaven heard the accounts of these things from Jesus, but that that
Spirit which taught Moses the history of events before his own time,
beginning with the creation, and descending down to Abraham his father,
taught also the writers of the Gospel the miraculous occurrence which
took place at the time of Jesus’ baptism. And he who is adorned with the
spiritual gift,[1192] called the “word of wisdom,” will explain also the
reason of the heavens opening, and the dove appearing, and why the Holy
Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of no other living thing than that
of a dove. But our present subject does not require us to explain this,
our purpose being to show that Celsus displayed no sound judgment in
representing a Jew as disbelieving, on such grounds, a fact which has
greater probability in its favour than many events in which he firmly
reposes confidence.
Footnote 1192:
χαρίσματι.