Against Celsus 7.57

Then next, as though his aim were to fill up a book, he wanted us to consider Jonah rather than Jesus a god, preferring Jonah, who preached repentance to one city, Nineveh, to Jesus, who preached repentance to the whole world and accomplished more than he. And he wanted us to proclaim as a god the one who spent “three days and three nights” marvellously and extraordinarily “in the belly of the sea monster,” but Celsus would not have the one who undertook to die for men, witnessed to by God through the prophets, be worthy of the honour second after the God of the universe, for the noble deeds he did in heaven and on earth. And Jonah was swallowed by the sea monster so as not to preach what God had commanded, but Jesus, because he taught what God willed, undertook death for men. Next he says that Daniel, who came up from the lions, ought to be worshipped by us rather than Jesus, who trampled on the savagery of every opposing power and gave us “authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.” Then, having no others to name, he says, “or others more marvellous still than these,” so as to revile Jonah and Daniel at the same time; for the spirit in Celsus did not know how to speak well of the righteous.