Against Celsus 4.26

But if, because of doctrines of Christians and Jews that do not please Celsus (which he seems not even to understand at all), these are worms and ants and the rest are not, come, let us compare the doctrines of Christians and Jews that are evident to all with those of the rest of mankind, and see whether it will not appear, to those who have once granted that some men are worms and ants, that the worms, ants, and frogs are those who have fallen from the sound conception of God and, in a semblance of piety, worship irrational animals, or statues, or even created things, when they ought to admire the Maker from their beauty and worship him; whereas men, and whatever is more honorable than men, are those who, following reason, have been able to ascend from stones and wood, and even from what is considered the most precious matter, silver and gold; and ascending also from the beautiful things in the world to the Maker of the universe, have entrusted themselves to him, and as to the one alone able to reach through all beings, to oversee the thoughts of all, and to hear the prayers of all, send up their prayers to him, and do everything as with him as spectator of what happens, and as with him as hearer of what is said, beware of saying anything that would be reported to God as displeasing. Unless, perhaps, such great piety, conquered neither by toils nor by danger of death nor by plausible arguments, does not help those who have taken it up so that they are no longer compared to worms, even if they were compared to them before such great piety! And do those who conquer the most violent desire for sexual pleasure, which has made the spirits of many soft and waxen, and who conquer it because they are persuaded that they cannot otherwise be brought near to God unless they ascend to him through chastity, seem to us brothers of worms, kinsmen of ants, and like frogs? And what of the splendor of justice, which keeps toward one's neighbor and kinsman what is sociable, just, humane, and kind: does it do nothing to keep such a man from being a bat? But are not those who wallow in licentiousness, as most men do, and who go indifferently to common prostitutes and teach that this is not altogether contrary to duty, worms in the mud? Especially when compared with those who have been taught not to take “the members of Christ” and the body inhabited by the Word and make them “members of a prostitute,” and who have already learned that the “body” of a rational being devoted to the God of the universe “is a temple” of the God they worship, becoming such from their pure conception of the Creator; and who, guarding against destroying “the temple of God” through unlawful intercourse, practice chastity as piety toward God.