Against Celsus 7.8

I do not know how Celsus, having said, what was said by the men in Judaea in the manner of those people, added, or not said, as though, being an unbeliever, he were claiming that possibly these things were not even said, but that things not said were perhaps written down. For he did not see the dates, nor that many years beforehand they foretold countless things and spoke also about the coming of Christ. Again, wishing to slander the ancient prophets, he says that they prophesied in the way that, he says, those around Phoenicia and Palestine are accustomed to do even now, without making clear whether he means people foreign to the teaching of the Jews and Christians, or people prophesying in the Jewish manner, after the pattern of the prophets. However his words are meant, they are proved false. For neither have any of those foreign to the faith done anything like the prophets, nor are any more recent people, after the coming of Jesus, recorded to have prophesied among the Jews; for it is acknowledged that the Holy Spirit has left them, since they acted impiously toward God and toward the one prophesied by their own prophets. Signs of the Holy Spirit were shown at the beginning of Jesus' teaching, and more after his ascension, but later fewer; yet even now there are still traces of him among a few, whose souls have been purified by the Word and by the actions that accord with it. “For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will rise up and depart from senseless thoughts.”