Against Celsus 3.53

For it is written in our Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who were Greeks but not yet purified in their character: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not yet able; for you are still fleshly. For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and walking in a merely human way?” And this same man, knowing that some things are food for a more perfect soul, and that the teachings of beginners are compared to the milk of infants, says: “And you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant; but solid food is for the perfect, who by habit have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil.” Would those who believe these words to be well spoken suppose, then, that the beautiful things of the word would never be spoken in a gathering of sensible men, but that wherever they see adolescents and a crowd of house-slaves and a throng of foolish people, there they bring forward the divine and holy things and show off about them before such people? But it is clear to anyone who examines the whole intention of our writings that Celsus, hating the Christian race like the common crowd, says such things without examination and falsely.