After the above, this Jew of Celsus, as if he were a Greek who loved
learning, and were well instructed in Greek literature, continues: “The
old mythological fables, which attributed a divine origin to Perseus,
and Amphion, and Æacus, and Minos, were not believed by us.
Nevertheless, that they might not appear unworthy of credit, they
represented the deeds of these personages as great and wonderful, and
truly beyond the power of man; but what hast thou done that is noble or
wonderful either in deed or in word? Thou hast made no manifestation to
us, although they challenged you in the temple to exhibit some
unmistakeable sign that you were the Son of God.” In reply to which we
have to say: Let the Greeks show to us, among those who have been
enumerated, any one whose deeds have been marked by a utility and
splendour extending to after generations, and which have been so great
as to produce a belief in the fables which represented them as of divine
descent. But these Greeks can show us nothing regarding those men of
whom they speak, which is even inferior by a great degree to what Jesus
did; unless they take us back to their fables and histories, wishing us
to believe them without any reasonable grounds, and to discredit the
Gospel accounts even after the clearest evidence. For we assert that the
whole habitable world contains evidence of the works of Jesus, in the
existence of those churches of God which have been founded through Him
by those who have been converted from the practice of innumerable sins.
And the name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of
men, and expel demons, and also take away diseases; and produce a
marvellous meekness of spirit and complete change of character, and a
humanity, and goodness, and gentleness in those individuals who do not
feign themselves to be Christians for the sake of subsistence or the
supply of any mortal wants, but who have honestly accepted the doctrine
concerning God and Christ, and the judgment to come.