Against Celsus 8.5

Since, then, there are many so-called or real gods, and likewise lords, we do everything to rise above not only what is worshipped as gods among the nations on earth, but also those whom the Scriptures call gods, of whom those know nothing who are “strangers to the covenants” of God given through Moses and through Jesus our Saviour, and who are aliens from his promises made known through them. He rises above servitude to all demons who does nothing that is pleasing to demons; and he rises above the portion of those who in Paul are said to be gods who looks, whether like them or in whatever way the matter stands, “not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.” And whoever sees how “the eager longing of the creation awaits the revealing of the sons of God,” subjected “not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope,” and, speaking well of the creation, sees how the whole of it “will be set free from the bondage of corruption” and will attain “to the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” is not distracted into serving anyone else together with God, nor into “serving two masters.” It is not, then, the voice of sedition in those who have understood such things and do not wish to “serve” many “masters,” and for this reason are content with the Lord Jesus Christ, who trains under himself those who serve him, so that, when they have been trained and become a “kingdom” worthy of God, he may hand them over to God the Father. They do indeed separate and break away from those who are aliens to “the commonwealth” of God and strangers “to his covenants,” so that they may live as citizens of “the commonwealth in heaven,” coming to the living God “and to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.”