Against Celsus 5.38

I wish to show how unreasonably Celsus says that each should revere his own and ancestral gods. For he says that the Ethiopians who live in Meroe know only two gods, Zeus and Dionysus, and revere them alone; and the Arabians also only two, Dionysus, as the Ethiopians do, and Urania, their own. According to his account, neither do the Ethiopians revere Urania nor the Arabians Zeus. If, then, an Ethiopian, finding himself among the Arabians by some circumstance, were thought impious for not revering Urania, and were in danger of death for this, would it be right for the Ethiopian to die, or to act contrary to his ancestral customs and worship Urania? If it is right for him to act contrary to his ancestral customs, he will act unholily, as far as Celsus's words go; but if he were led off to death, let him show the reasonableness of choosing death, when I do not know whether the Ethiopian doctrine teaches them to philosophize about the immortality of the soul and the honour for piety, if they revere the gods held such according to their ancestral laws. The same can be said about Arabians who by some circumstance stay among the Ethiopians around Meroe. For they too, taught to revere Urania and Dionysus alone, will not worship Zeus with the Ethiopians; and if, thought to be impious, they were led off to death, let Celsus say what they would reasonably do. As for the myths about Osiris and Isis, it is superfluous and untimely for us to list them now. Even if the myths are interpreted figuratively, they will teach us to revere lifeless water and the earth that lies beneath human beings and all animals; for so, I think, they take Osiris as water and Isis as earth. About Sarapis there is a long and conflicting story: he came onto the scene only yesterday or the day before, through certain magical practices of Ptolemy, who wished to show the people of Alexandria a god, as it were, made manifest. We have read in Numenius the Pythagorean about his construction, that he shares in the substance of all the animals and plants administered by nature; so that he might seem to be made a god, with impious rites and magic that invokes demons, not by sculptors alone but also by magicians and sorcerers and by the demons charmed by their incantations.