Against Celsus 1.42

Before we begin our defense, we must say that to try to establish that almost any story, even if it is true, actually happened, and to produce a firm conviction about it, is among the very hardest things, and in some cases impossible. For suppose someone said that the Trojan War did not happen, chiefly because of the impossible tale woven into it that a certain Achilles was born the son of a sea goddess, Thetis, and a man, Peleus, or Sarpedon of Zeus, or Ascalaphus and Ialmenus of Ares, or Aeneas of Aphrodite. How would we establish such a thing, especially when pressed by the fiction that, I do not know how, has been woven into the opinion universally held that the war at Ilium between Greeks and Trojans really happened? And suppose someone disbelieved the story of Oedipus and Jocasta and of Eteocles and Polynices, born of them both, because the Sphinx, a sort of half-maiden, is woven into the tale; how would we prove such a thing? So too with the story of the Epigoni, even though nothing of the sort is woven into it, or of the return of the Heraclidae, or countless others. But one who reads histories fairly, and wishes to keep himself from being deceived even in them, will judge which he will accept, which he will interpret figuratively, searching out the intention of those who invented such things, and which he will disbelieve as written to gratify certain people. And we have said this in advance with regard to the whole story of Jesus reported in the Gospels, not calling the more intelligent to simple and irrational faith, but wishing to show that those who read them need fair-mindedness, much examination, and, so to speak, entry into the intention of the writers, so that it may be found with what meaning each thing was written.