Against Celsus 7.30

It seems to me that what Plato says about the stones considered precious here, which are said to have a kind of emanation from the stones in the better land, was also taken by him from what is written in Isaiah about the city of God, of which it is written: “I will make your battlements of jasper, and your stones stones of crystal, and your enclosing wall choice stones”; and again: “I will lay your foundations with sapphire.” Those who have understood the philosopher's teachings in a loftier way explain Plato's myth allegorically. But the prophecies, from which we conjecture that Plato too took these things, will be set forth, for those fitted by purity of life and love of learning about divine things, by those who have lived like the prophets and in an inspired way, and have devoted all their time to the examination of the sacred writings. Our purpose was to show that we have not taken what concerns the holy land from the Greeks or Plato; rather they, who were later not only than Moses, the most ancient, but also than most of the prophets, either misunderstood some who spoke of such things in riddles, or read the sacred writings and, distorting them, said such things about the better land. Haggai clearly shows that “the dry land” is one thing and “the earth” another, calling this land on which we live dry land. He says this: “Yet once more I will shake the heaven and the earth and the dry land and the sea.”