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What did Christ say respecting the intellectual character of his converts?
“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” ([Matthew xi, 25]; [Luke x, 21]).
Commenting on this expression of thanks, Celsus, who lived at the time the Four Gospels made their appearance, says: “This is one of their [the Christians’] rules: Let no man that is learned, wise, or prudent come among us; but if they be unlearned, or a child, or an idiot, let him freely come. So they openly declare that none but the ignorant, and those devoid of understanding, slaves, women, and children, are fit disciples for the God they worship.”
Concerning the Christian teachers of that age Celsus writes as follows: “You may see weavers, tailors, fullers, and the most illiterate of rustic fellows, who dare not speak a word before wise men, when they can get a company of children and silly women together, set up to teach strange paradoxes among them.”