Against Celsus 6.27

Next, after the matters of the diagram, Celsus, without even having half-heard anything about what churchmen call the seal, sets out certain strange ideas of his own and a dialogue of question and answer, in which the one who applies the seal is called father, and the one being sealed is called young man and son and answers: “I have been anointed with white ointment from the tree of life,” something we have not heard happens even among the sects. Then he also fixes a number said by those who hand on the seal: seven angels standing on either side of the soul as it departs from the body, some of light and others of those called archontic; and he says that the ruler of those called archontic is called an accursed god. Then, seizing on the phrase, he reasonably accuses those who dare to say this; and for this reason we too share the indignation of those who blame such people, if indeed there are some who call the God of the Jews accursed, the God who sends rain and thunder, the Creator of this world, the God of Moses and of the creation he describes. But Celsus seems to have intended something by this that was not fair-minded but, from his unphilosophical hatred of us, utterly unfair. For he wished to make those unacquainted with our teachings, when they read his book, fight against us, as though we called the good Creator of this world an accursed god. And he seems to me to have done something like the Jews who, at the beginning of the teaching of Christianity, spread slander against the faith, saying that Christians sacrifice a child and partake of its flesh, and again that those of the faith, wishing to do the works of darkness, put out the light and each has intercourse with whatever woman is at hand. This slander, absurd as it is, long ago prevailed over a great many people, persuading those outside the faith that Christians are like this; and even now it still deceives some, who are turned away by such things from coming even to simple conversation with Christians.