Against Celsus 5.49

Nor do the Jews pride themselves on abstaining from pigs as something great, but on having learned the nature of clean and unclean animals and known the reason for it, and that the pig is placed among the unclean. These things too were symbols of certain realities until the coming of Jesus; after him it was said to his disciple, who did not yet understand the meaning of these things and said, "Nothing common or unclean has entered my mouth": "What God has cleansed, do not call common." It is nothing, then, either to the Jews or to us, that the priests of the Egyptians abstain not only from pigs but also from goats, sheep, oxen, and fish. But since "it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man," and "food will not commend us to God," we do not think much of ourselves for not eating, nor do we come to eating out of gluttony. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, let the followers of Pythagoras, who abstain from living things, go their way. And see the difference between the reason for abstaining from living things among the followers of Pythagoras and among the ascetics among us. They abstain from living things because of the myth of the soul's transmigration: "And who, lifting up his dear son, will slay him with a prayer, the great fool?" But we, if we do such a thing, do it because we pommel "the body" and bring it into subjection, and wish to put to death "the members that are on earth: sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, passion, evil desire"; and we do everything in order to put to death "the deeds of the body."