Against Celsus 2.52

Since the one who says these things in Celsus is a Jew, we might say to him: “You, sir, why have you believed that what is written in your books as accomplished by God through Moses is divine, and try to argue against those who slander it as done by sorcery like the works of the wise men of Egypt, while you, imitating the Egyptians who oppose you, accuse what Jesus did, which even you admit happened, of not being divine? For if the outcome, and the whole nation formed through the wonders in Moses, establishes clearly that it was God who did these things in the time of Moses, how will this not be shown still more in the case of Jesus, who did a greater work than Moses? Moses took those of the nation descended from Abraham, who had kept circumcision by succession and were zealous for the customs of Abraham, and so were more ready, and led them out of Egypt, setting before them the divine laws which you have believed. But Jesus, daring something greater, brought in the way of life according to the gospel in place of the established way of life, ancestral customs, and upbringing according to the existing laws. And just as there was need, for Moses to be believed not only by the elders but also by the people, of the signs he is recorded to have done, why would Jesus not also, to be believed by those of the people who had learned to ask for ‘signs and wonders,’ need such miracles as, being greater and more divine than those through Moses, could draw them away from Jewish fables and the human traditions among them, and make them accept the one who taught and did these things as greater than the prophets? For how was he not greater than the prophets, who was proclaimed by the prophets as the Christ and Savior of the human race?”