Against Celsus 4.67

I do not know how it seemed useful to Celsus, writing against us, to throw in a doctrine that needs much demonstration, even plausible demonstration, showing as far as possible that "the cycle of mortal things is alike from beginning to end, and according to the appointed revolutions the same things must always have happened, be happening, and be going to happen." If this is true, free will is abolished. For if according to the appointed revolutions the same things must always have happened, be happening, and be going to happen in the cycle of mortal things, it is clear that Socrates must always practise philosophy and be accused of new divinities and of corrupting the young, and Anytus and Meletus must always accuse him, and the council on the Areopagus must always condemn him to death by hemlock. So too, according to the appointed cycles, Phalaris must always be tyrant, and Alexander of Pherae must commit the same cruelties, and those condemned to Phalaris's bull must always bellow in it. If this is granted, I do not know how free will can be preserved, or how praise and blame can be reasonable. And to such a hypothesis this will be said to Celsus: if the cycle of mortal things is always alike from beginning to end, and according to the appointed revolutions the same things must always have happened, be happening, and be going to happen, then, according to the appointed cycles, Moses must always come out of Egypt with the people of the Jews, and Jesus must again come to live among us to do the same things, which he has done not once but infinitely many times according to the cycles; and the same Christians will exist in the appointed revolutions, and Celsus will write this book again, having written it infinitely many times before.