Against Celsus 1.19

After this Celsus, secretly wishing to slander the account of the making of the world according to Moses, which shows that the world is not yet ten thousand years old but much short of that, sides with those who say that the world is uncreated, while concealing his intention. For in saying that there have been many conflagrations from all eternity and many floods, and that the flood in the time of Deucalion is the more recent, having happened lately, he clearly shows those able to understand him that in his view the world is uncreated. Let the one who finds fault with the faith of Christians tell us by what demonstrative arguments he was compelled to accept that there have been many conflagrations and many floods, and that the most recent of all are the flood in the time of Deucalion and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon. But if he puts forward Plato's dialogues on these matters, we will tell him that we too may believe that in the pure and devout soul of Moses—who rose above everything created and attached himself to the maker of the universe—a divine spirit dwelt, which set forth the things of God far more clearly than Plato and the wise men among Greeks and barbarians. And if he demands of us reasons for such a faith, let him first give reasons for what he himself asserted without proof, and then we will establish that our views are so.