Against Celsus 5.34

So as not to pass over what Celsus says in between, come, let us set that out too: "One might also use Herodotus as a witness on this point, who says: 'For the people of the city of Marea and of Apis, who live in the parts of Egypt bordering on Libya, thinking themselves Libyans and not Egyptians, and vexed at the religious rules about sacrifices, and wishing not to be barred from cows, sent to Ammon saying that they had nothing in common with the Egyptians; for they lived outside the Delta and did not agree with them, and they wished to be allowed to eat everything. But the god would not let them do this, saying that Egypt was the land that the Nile reaches and waters, and that those were Egyptians who live below the city of Elephantine and drink from this river.' This is what Herodotus reports. And Ammon is no worse at conveying the will of the divine powers than the angels of the Jews; so it is not at all unjust for each people to practise its own customs. Indeed, we will find the greatest difference among them from nation to nation, and yet each people thinks itself to be best at holding customs: of the Ethiopians, those who live in Meroe revere 'Zeus and Dionysus alone,' the Arabians Urania and Dionysus, these alone; all the Egyptians revere Osiris and Isis, the people of Sais Athena, and the people of Naucratis, not long ago, began to name Sarapis, and the rest according to their nomes, each in their own way. And some abstain from sheep, revering them as sacred, others from goats, others from crocodiles, others from cows, while they abstain from pigs, loathing them. For the Scythians, indeed, it is a fine thing even to feast on human beings; and there are Indians who think they act piously in eating even their fathers. And somewhere the same Herodotus says (I will again use his own words for the sake of trustworthiness), he reports thus: 'For if someone were to set it before all mankind, bidding them choose the finest customs of all customs, after examining them each would choose their own; so much does each think its own customs the finest by far. It is not likely, then, that anyone but a madman would make a mockery of such things. That all human beings think thus about customs one can judge by many other proofs, and in particular by this. Darius, during his reign, summoned the Greeks who were present and asked them for what price they would be willing to eat their fathers when they died; and they said they would not do it for anything. After this Darius summoned those Indians called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them, in the presence of the Greeks, who understood what was said through an interpreter, for what price they would agree to burn their fathers with fire when they died; and they cried out loudly and bade him speak no evil. So these things are customary now, and Pindar seems to me to have been right when he wrote that custom is king of all.'"