Against Celsus 5.25

Let us look also at Celsus's next passage, which runs thus: "The Jews, then, having become a nation of their own and made laws according to their country's custom, and still maintaining these among themselves, and keeping a worship, whatever sort it may be, but at any rate ancestral, act like other human beings, since each people cherishes its ancestral customs, whatever they happen to be. And this seems to be beneficial, not only because it has occurred to different peoples to think differently and one must keep what has been established for the community, but also because, as is likely, the parts of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different overseers and divided into certain dominions, and are administered in this way. And indeed, the things done among each people would be rightly done in the way that pleases those overseers; while it is not holy to abolish what has been customary in each place from the beginning." In this Celsus shows that the Jews, formerly Egyptians, later became a nation of their own, and having made laws they maintain them. And, not to repeat Celsus's words set out above, he says it is beneficial for them to practise their ancestral worship, as other nations cherish their own. And he sets out a deeper reason why it is beneficial for the Jews to cherish their ancestral customs, hinting that the laws of each people were made by those allotted to be overseers of the earth, who cooperated with the lawgivers of the lands being given laws. He seems, then, to indicate that someone, or some beings, oversee the land of the Jews and the nation in it, by whose cooperation Moses made the Jews' laws.