Against Celsus 4.50

Moreover, if the law of Moses had nothing written in it that is revealed through hidden meanings, the prophet would not have said to God in prayer, “Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive the wonders of your law.” But as it is, he knew that there is a “veil” of ignorance lying on the heart of those who read and do not understand what is spoken figuratively; which “veil is taken away” by God's gift, when he hears the one who has done everything in his power, has trained his faculties by habit to distinguish good and evil, and has said most constantly in prayer, “Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive the wonders of your law.” And who, reading of a dragon living in the river of Egypt, and fish nestling in its scales, or of the mountains of Egypt filled “with the excrement” of Pharaoh, is not led at once to inquire who it is that fills the mountains of Egypt with such foul-smelling “excrement,” and what the mountains of the Egyptians are, and what the rivers in Egypt are, about which the aforesaid Pharaoh boasts, saying, “The rivers are mine, and I made them,” and who is the dragon corresponding to the rivers that will be shown by interpretation, and who are the fish in its scales? And why need I establish further what needs no establishing? Of such things it is said: “Who is wise, and will understand these things? Or intelligent, and will know them?” I have extended my discourse at some length because I wanted to show that Celsus did not speak soundly in saying that “the more reasonable of the Jews and Christians try somehow to allegorize these things, but they are not such as to admit any allegory, but are plainly very silly myths.” For far more are the Greek stories not only very silly but also very impious myths. For ours have regard also to the multitude of simpler people, which those who made the Greek fictions did not take care to do. That is why Plato, not without reason, expels such myths and such poems from his republic.