Against Celsus 3.61

It is not, then, to mysteries and to fellowship in the wisdom hidden “in a mystery,” “which God predestined before the ages for the glory” of his righteous ones, that we call the unjust man, the thief, the housebreaker, the poisoner, the temple-robber, the grave-robber, and whatever others Celsus in his exaggeration might name, but to healing. For in the divinity of the word there are, on the one hand, aids that heal those who are “sick,” of which the Word said, “Those who are strong do not need a physician, but those who are sick”; and on the other hand, those that show to the pure in soul and body “the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages but now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures” and “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who appears to each of the perfect and enlightens the ruling faculty for undeceived knowledge of realities. But since, exaggerating his charges against us, he adds to those whom he named among the most defiled of men the question, “Whom else would a robber invite by proclamation?”, to this too we shall say: a robber invites such people in order to use their wickedness against men whom he wants to murder and rob; but a Christian, even if he calls those whom the robber calls, calls them with a different calling, so that he may bind up their “wounds” with the word and pour upon the soul inflamed with evils the medicines of the word, like wine and oil and poultice and the other aids of the medicine of the soul.