Against Celsus 2.75

I think this is enough for anyone who wishes to show that the Jews' unbelief toward Jesus was consistent with what was recorded about the people from the beginning. For I would say to the Jew in Celsus who says, “What god, being present among human beings, is disbelieved, and that when he appears to those who hope for him? Or why is he not recognized by those who have long awaited him?”: “Sirs, how will you answer our questions? What miracles seem to you, by your own judgment, to be greater: those in Egypt and the wilderness, or those we say Jesus did among you? If by your reckoning the former are greater than the latter, how is it not shown at once that it belongs to the character of those who disbelieved the greater to despise the lesser too? For this is what is supposed about what we say concerning Jesus. But if those told of Jesus are said to be equal to those recorded by Moses, what strange thing has befallen a people who disbelieved at both beginnings of these events? For the beginning of lawgiving was in Moses' time, in which the sins of the unbelievers and sinners among you are recorded; and the beginning of lawgiving and of a second covenant is acknowledged to have come to us in the time of Jesus. And by your unbelief toward Jesus you bear witness that you are sons of those who in the wilderness disbelieved the divine manifestations; and what our Savior said will be said to you too, who disbelieved him: ‘So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your fathers’; and in you is fulfilled the prophecy that says: ‘Your life will hang before your eyes, and you will not believe in your life.’ For you did not believe in the Life that came to dwell among the human race.”