Against Celsus 8.24

Let us see what arguments Celsus uses in urging us to partake of offerings to idols and of the public sacrifices at the public festivals. What he says is this: “If these idols are nothing, what harm is there in joining the general feast? And if there are some demons, clearly these too belong to God, and one must both trust them, and sacrifice to them according to the laws, and pray to them, so that they may be favourable.” For this it would be useful to take up and explain the whole discussion of “offerings to idols” in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. There, answering the claim that “an idol is nothing in the world,” he established the harm that comes from eating offerings to idols, showing to those able to understand what is there that one who partakes of offerings to idols does nothing less evil than a murderer, since he destroys his brothers, for whom “Christ died.” And after this, laying down that what is sacrificed is sacrificed to demons, he shows that those who partake of “the table of demons” become “partners with demons”; and he shows that it is impossible for the same person “to partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” But since the explanation of these matters in the letter to the Corinthians requires a whole treatise with many proofs, we shall be content with what has been briefly set out; from which it will be clear to anyone who examines it that, even if the idols are nothing, it is none the less harmful to join the general feast of the idols. We have also said enough to show that, even if there are some demons to whom the sacrifices are offered, we must not partake of them, since we know the difference between “the table of the Lord” and “the table of demons”; and because we know it, we do everything so that we may always partake of “the table of the Lord,” and guard ourselves in every way so that we may never become partners in “the table” of “demons.”