Against Celsus 7.47

At any rate, the divine Word bears witness about those who have grasped what Celsus sets out and profess to philosophize according to these doctrines, that “knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and” after so great a light of knowledge of what God had shown them, “their senseless heart was darkened.” One can see, indeed, how those “claiming to be wise” display signs of great folly when, after such great discourses in their lectures about God and intelligible things, “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.” That is why they themselves, abandoned by providence as not having lived worthily of what God had shown them, wallow “in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,” and “their bodies” are dishonoured in indecencies and licentiousness, because they exchanged “the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”