Floods, fires, and the age of the world

Next, Celsus, wishing covertly to discredit the account of the making of the world given by Moses, which indicates that the world is not yet ten thousand years old but much less than that, sides with those who say that the world is uncreated, while hiding his own intention. For his statement that “there have been many conflagrations from all eternity, and many floods, and the flood in the time of Deucalion is more recent, having happened lately” plainly shows those able to understand him that in his view the world is uncreated.

Let the man who finds fault with the faith of Christians tell us by what demonstrative arguments he was compelled to accept that there have been many conflagrations and many floods, and that the most recent of all are the flood in the time of Deucalion and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon. But if he puts forward Plato’s dialogues on these matters, we shall tell him that we too may believe that the divine Spirit dwelt in the pure and devout soul of Moses, who rose above everything that has come into being and attached himself to the Creator of the universe, and who set forth the things of God far more clearly than Plato and the wise among Greeks and barbarians. And if he demands of us reasons for such a faith, let him first give reasons for what he himself declared without proof, and after that we shall establish that our own positions are so.