Mary’s lineage and the genealogies
We have already said that Jesus can be neither a braggart nor a sorcerer. So there is no need to go over again what has been said, lest we answer Celsus’s repetitions by repeating ourselves. In finding fault with the genealogy, he did not so much as name the questions which are raised even among Christians, and which some bring forward as charges, about the disagreement between the genealogies. For Celsus, who is truly a braggart and professes to know everything about Christians, did not know how to raise an intelligent difficulty about Scripture.
He says that those who traced Jesus’s descent from the first man and from the kings of the Jews were presumptuous (Matthew 1:1–17; Luke 3:23–38). And he thinks he is bringing forward something weighty when he says that the carpenter’s wife, if she had been of so great a lineage, would not have been unaware of it. What has this to do with the argument? Suppose she was not unaware of it: what harm does that do to the matter in hand? Or suppose she was unaware: how does it follow, from her being unaware, that she was not descended from the first man, and that her line did not go back to those who reigned among the Jews? Or does Celsus think that the poor must be born of ancestors who were all poor, or that kings must be born of kings?
To linger over this argument seems to me idle, since it is plain that even in our own times some people poorer than Mary have been born of rich and famous parents, and rulers of nations and kings have been born of the most obscure parents.
Greek
Προείρηται δ᾿ ἡμῖν ὅτι οὔτ᾿ ἀλαζὼν οὔτε γόης δύναται εἶναι ὁ Ἰησοῦς· διὸ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον ἐπαναλαμβάνειν τὰ εἰρημένα, ἱνα μὴ πρὸς τὰς ταυτολογίας Κέλσου καὶ ἡμεῖς ταυτολογῶμεν. ἐγκαλῶν δὲ τῇ γενεαλογίᾳ τὰ μὲν καὶ παρὰ Χριστιανοῖς ζητούμενα καὶ ὑπό τινων ὡς ἐγκλήματα προσαγόμενα τῇ διαφωνίᾳ τῶν γενεαλογιῶν οὐδαμῶς ὠνόμασεν. οὐ γὰρ ᾔδει ὁ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀλαζὼν Κέλσος καὶ ἐπαγγελλόμενος εἰδέναι πάντα τὰ Χριστιανῶν φρονίμως ἐπαπορῆσαι τῇ γραφῇ. φησὶ δὲ ἀπηυθαδῆσθαι τοὺς γενεαλογήσαντας ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου φύντος καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἰουδαίοις βασιλέων τὸν Ἰησοῦν. καὶ οἴεταί τι εἰσφέρειν γενναῖον, ὅτι οὐκ ἂν ἡ τοῦ τέκτονος γυνὴ τηλικούτου γένους τυγχάνουσα ἠγνόει. τί γὰρ τοῦτο πρὸς τὸν λόγον; ἔστω ὅτι οὐκ ἠγνόει· τί λυπεῖ τὰ προκείμενα; ἀλλὰ ἀγνοείτω· πόθεν, ὅτι ἠγνόει, οὐκ ἦν ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνθρώπου καὶ οὐκ ἀνήγετο αὐτῆς τὸ γένος ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐν Ἰουδαίοις βασιλεύσαντας; ἢ ἀναγκαῖον οἴεται ὁ Κέλσος τοὺς πενεστέρους ἐκ πάντων πενεστέρων προγόνων γεγονέναι ἢ τοὺς βασιλεῖς ἐκ βασιλέων; διατρίβειν οὖν περὶ τὸν λόγον δοκεῖ μοι εἶναι μάταιον, φανεροῦ ὄντος ὅτι καὶ κατὰ τοὺς ἡμετέρους χρόνους ἐκ πλουσίων καὶ ἐνδόξων γεγόνασί τινες τῆς Μαρίας πενέστεροι καὶ ἐξ ἀσημοτάτων ἡγούμενοι ἐθνῶν καὶ βασιλεῖς.