Against Celsus 2.41

Celsus further accuses Jesus, through the character of the Jew, of not showing himself pure from all evils. From what evils, let Celsus's argument say, did Jesus not show himself pure? For if he says that he was not pure from evils in the proper sense, let him clearly show a deed of wickedness in him. But if he considers poverty, the cross, and the plotting of wicked men to be evils, it is clear that he says evils befell Socrates too, who could not show himself pure from evils. And how great a company of poor men there is besides among the Greeks, who practiced philosophy and accepted voluntary poverty, most Greeks know from what is recorded: of Democritus, who let his property become sheep pasture; of Crates, who freed himself by giving the Thebans the money paid to him for the sale of all his possessions. Diogenes too lived in a jar out of extreme frugality; yet among no one with even moderate sense was Diogenes, for this reason, in evil.