Against Celsus 3.27

It must be said about the story of Aristeas that, if Celsus had set it out as a story, without showing his own assent by accepting it as true, we would have answered his argument differently. But since he says that Aristeas vanished in a divine way and appeared again clearly, visited many parts of the world, and reported wonderful things, and further sets out the oracle of Apollo commanding the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods, as on his own account and assenting to it, … our reply to him: “How is it that you suppose the marvels recorded about Jesus by his disciples to be altogether fictions, and blame those who believe them, while you think these to be neither marvel-mongering nor fictions? And how is it that you, who accuse others of believing the marvels about Jesus irrationally, show that you have believed so many things, bringing no proof or argument that they happened? Are Herodotus and Pindar thought by you not to lie, while those who practiced dying for Jesus' teachings and left such writings to their successors about what they were persuaded of, contend so hard, as you think, for fictions, myths, and marvel-mongering, as to live in distress and die violently for them? Place yourself, then, between what is written about Aristeas and what is related about Jesus, and see whether, from the outcome and from those helped toward the correction of their morals and reverence for the God over all, it can be said that we must believe the accounts about Jesus as having happened not without God, but not those about Aristeas of Proconnesus.”