Against Celsus 4.51

He seems to me also to have heard that there are writings containing allegories of the law; had he read them, he would not have said: “At any rate, the allegories that seem to have been written about them are much more shameful and absurd than the myths, joining with some marvelous and utterly senseless folly things that can in no way be fitted together.” He seems to say this about the writings of Philo, or of those still older, such as those of Aristobulus. I conjecture that Celsus had not read the books, since in many places they seem to me so successful that even the philosophers among the Greeks would be won over by what is said; in them not only the style is polished, but also the thoughts and doctrines and the use of what Celsus thinks are the myths of the Scriptures. I know also that Numenius the Pythagorean, a man who expounded Plato far better and championed the Pythagorean doctrines, in many places in his writings sets out the words of Moses and the prophets and interprets them figuratively not implausibly, as in the work called Epops, and in his books On Numbers and On Place. And in the third book On the Good he sets out even a story about Jesus, without naming him, and interprets it figuratively; whether successfully or unsuccessfully, it is for another occasion to say. He sets out also the story of Moses, Jannes, and Jambres. We do not pride ourselves on it, but we approve of him more than Celsus and other Greeks, since he wished to examine our writings too with love of learning, and was moved by them as writings to be interpreted figuratively and not foolish.