"Either God is in reality changed, as the Christians say, into a mortal body,—and we have before shown that this is impossible; or he himself is not changed, but he causes those who behold him to think that he is, and thus falsifies himself, and involves others in error. Deception, however, and falsehood are indeed otherwise evil, and can only be [properly] employed by any one as a medicine, either in curing friends that are diseased or have some vicious propensity, or those that are insane, or for the purpose of avoiding danger from enemies. But no one who has vicious propensities, or is insane, is dear to Divinity. Nor does God fear any one, in order that by wandering he may escape danger**.

* See a most admirable defence of the immutability of
Divinity, by Proclus, in Taylor's Introduction to the Second
and Third Books of Plato's Republic, in vol. i. of his
translation of Plato's Works. See also Taylor's note at the
end of vol. iii. of his translation of Pausanias, p. 235.
** The original of this sentence is, [—Greek—] the latter
part of which, [—Greek—], is thus, erroneously translated
by Spencer, "ut imposture opus habeat ad evadendum
periculum."

"The Christians, adding to the assertions of the Jews, say that the son of God came on account of the sins of the Jews; and that the Jews, punishing Jesus and causing him to drink gall, raised the bile of God against them."

Celsus after this, in his usual way deriding both Jews and Christians, compares all of them to a multitude of bats, or to ants coming out of their holes, or to frogs seated about a marsh, or to earthworms that assemble in a corner of some muddy place, and contend with each other which of them are most noxious. He likewise represents them as saying, "God has manifested and predicted all things to us; and deserting the whole world and the celestial circulation, and likewise paying no attention to the widely-extended earth, he regards our concerns alone, to us alone sends messengers, and he will never cease to explore by what means we may always associate with him." He likewise resembles us to earthworms acknowledging that God exists; and he says that we earthworms, i. e. the Jews and Christians, being produced by God after him, are entirely similar to him. All things too are subject to us, earth and water, the air and the stars, and are ordained to be subservient to us*. Afterwards

* This reminds me of the following beautiful lines in...

these earthworms add: "Now because some of us have sinned, God will come, or he will send his son, in order that he may burn the unjust, and that those who are not so may live eternally with him." And Celsus concludes with observing that "such assertions would be more tolerable if they were made by earthworms or frogs, than by Jews or Christians contending with each other."

Celsus, after having adduced, from the writings of the heathens, instances of those who contended for the antiquity of their race, such as the Athenians, Egyptians, Arcadians, and Phrygians, and also of those who have asserted that some among them were aborigines, says, that "the Jews being concealed in a corner of Palestine, men perfectly in-erudite, and who never had previously heard the same things celebrated by Hesiod and innumerable

...Epistle I. of Pope's Essay on Man, in which Pride is
represented as saying:
"For me kind nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower;
Annual for me the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectarious and the balmy dew.
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings:
For me health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise,
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies."