Against Celsus 5.63

Then, so as to seem to know others besides those he named, he says, in his usual way, that "some have one teacher and demon, others another, wandering miserably and rolling about in great darkness, more lawless and foul than the revellers of Antinous in Egypt." And in touching on the facts he seems to me to have said something true: that some, wandering miserably and rolling about in the great darkness of ignorance, have found one demon or another as their patron. About Antinous, who is compared with our Jesus, we have spoken earlier and will not repeat ourselves. "And these people," he says, "utter against one another dreadful blasphemies, speakable and unspeakable; and they would not yield in the slightest to agreement, loathing one another utterly." To this too we have said that in philosophy and in medicine one can find schools warring with schools. But we who follow the word of Jesus, and have trained ourselves to think and say and do his words, "when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat"; and we would not say things speakable and unspeakable against those who hold views different from ours; but, if we can, we would do everything to change them for the better, by attaching themselves to the Creator alone and doing everything as those who will be judged. And if those of other opinions are not persuaded, we keep the word that commanded such things about them: "After a first and a second warning, have nothing more to do with a heretical man, knowing that such a person is perverted and sins, being self-condemned." Further, those who have understood "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Blessed are the meek" would not loathe those who debase the things of Christianity, nor would they call those who have gone astray Circes and wily deceivers.