Against Celsus 8.66

Then again Celsus, like those who recover for a time from demon-possession and then fall back again, says something like this as though sober: “If, however, someone commands one who happens to worship God either to act impiously or to say anything else shameful, one must in no way whatever obey, but rather endure every torture and submit to every death before one even thinks, let alone says, anything unholy about God.” Then again, from ignorance of our teaching and besides from confusing everything, he says: “But if someone commands you to praise the Sun or Athena, praise them most eagerly with a fine hymn; for so you will seem rather to worship the great God, if you hymn these too; for piety becomes more perfect by passing through all things.” We say, then, that we do not wait for someone to command us to praise the Sun, since we have learned to speak well not only of those subject to God's ordering but even of our enemies. We praise the Sun, then, as a beautiful work of God, keeping the laws of God, and obeying “Praise the Lord, sun and moon,” and hymning, as far as it can, the Father and Creator of the universe. But Athena, ranked with the Sun, is the subject of myths in the stories of the Greeks, whether with hidden meanings or without them, which say that she was born fully armed from the head of Zeus; and that when she was pursued by Hephaestus, who wished to destroy her virginity, she escaped him, but loved and reared the seed that fell to the earth from his desire, calling it Erichthonius, “whom once,” they say, “Athena reared, daughter of Zeus, and the grain-giving earth bore.” And we see that one who accepts Athena, daughter of Zeus, must accept along with her many myths and fictions, which one who flees myths and seeks truth would not accept.