Against Celsus 2.10

What did Jesus promise and not do? Let Celsus set it out and prove it. But he will not be able to, especially since he thinks he brings what he says against Jesus or against us either from misunderstandings, or from readings of the Gospels, or from Jewish stories. But since the Jew says again, "We convicted and condemned him and judged him worthy of punishment," let them show how those who sought to contrive false witness against him convicted him—unless the great proof against Jesus was what the accusers said, that "this man said: I am able to destroy the temple of God and to raise it in three days." For he "was speaking of the temple of his body," while they, not knowing how to hear according to the intention of the speaker, thought that his words were about the stone temple, which the Jews honored more than the true temple of God the Word, of wisdom and of truth, ought to be honored. And let someone say how Jesus "hid and ran away most disgracefully"; let someone point out what deserves reproach. But since he says also that he "was caught," I would say that if being caught is involuntary, Jesus was not caught. For at the suitable time he did not prevent himself from coming into the hands of men, as "the Lamb of God," that he might take away "the sin of the world." "Knowing all that was coming upon him, he went out and said to them: Whom do you seek? They answered: Jesus of Nazareth. He said to them: I am he. Judas, who was betraying him, was standing with them. When he said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. So he asked them again: Whom do you seek? And they said again: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered them: I told you that I am he; so if you seek me, let these men go." And to the one who wished to help him and struck "the high priest's slave" and cut off "his ear," he said: "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen so?" If someone thinks these things are inventions of those who wrote the Gospels, why are not rather the words of those who speak from enmity and hatred toward him and the Christians inventions, and the words of those who showed the genuineness of their devotion to Jesus by enduring anything whatever for his words the truth? For that the disciples of Jesus took upon themselves such endurance and steadfastness even to death, while inventing things about their teacher that were not so … And to the fair-minded the evidence is great that they were persuaded of what they wrote, from their having endured such great and so many things for the one they believed to be the Son of God.