Against Celsus 3.73

After this he again reviles the one who proclaims Christianity, and declares that he recounts ridiculous things, but does not demonstrate or clearly show what he says are ridiculous. And in his abuse he says that no sensible man is persuaded by the teaching, being distracted by the multitude of those who come to it. In this he does something like one who says that, because of the multitude of common people led by the laws, no sensible man obeys, say, Solon, or Lycurgus, or Zaleucus, or any of the rest, especially if he takes “sensible” to mean the man of virtue. For as the lawgivers, in the case of these people, did what seemed useful to them in surrounding them with such a way of life and laws, so God, giving laws in Jesus to men everywhere, leads even those who are not sensible, as far as such people can be led to what is better. Knowing this, as we said above, God says in Moses: “They made me jealous with what is no god, they provoked me with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is no nation, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.” And knowing it, Paul too said: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,” using “wise” in a general sense of all who seem to have advanced in learning but have fallen into godless polytheism; since “claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”