Against Celsus 5.30

Let all those on earth, then, be understood as using one divine language, and as long as they are in harmony with one another, let them be kept in the divine language; and let them remain unmoved "from the east," as long as they think the thoughts of the light and of the radiance from "eternal light." And these, when they move themselves "from the east," thinking thoughts foreign to "the east," let them find "a plain in the land of Shinar," which is interpreted "shaking out of teeth," as a symbol of their losing the means by which they are nourished; and let them settle there. Then, wishing to gather together the things of matter and to join to heaven what cannot by nature be joined to it, so as to plot against immaterial things by means of material ones, let them say: "Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire." So, as they harden and set fast the clay and material things, wishing to make brick into stone and clay into bitumen, and by these to build "a city and a tower whose" (as far as their supposition goes) "top will reach to heaven," according to the lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God, let them each be handed over, in proportion to their movement "from the east," which has happened to a greater or lesser degree, and in proportion to their making bricks into stones and clay into bitumen and building from these, to angels, harsher to a greater or lesser degree, and of this kind or that, until they pay the penalty for what they have dared. And let them be led by the angels, each of whom produced for them their own language, to the parts of the earth according to their deserts: some, for example, to a scorching land, others to one that punishes its inhabitants by its cold, some to one harder to farm and others to one less so, some to one full of wild beasts and others to one with fewer.