How Christians test and admit their hearers
If those men are not to blame for doing this, let us see whether Christians do not summon the crowds to goodness and nobility of character even more, and better, than they do. For the philosophers who converse in public do not sort out their hearers: whoever wishes stands and listens. Christians, on the other hand, first test, as far as they can, the souls of those who wish to hear them, and first instruct them privately; then, when the hearers seem, before entering the common assembly, to have made enough progress toward the will to live well, they bring them in. They form a separate class of those who are just beginning and being introduced and have not yet received the sign of their cleansing, and another of those who have shown, as far as they can, that their purpose is to want nothing other than what Christians hold. Among them certain persons are appointed to inquire into the lives and conduct of those who come forward, so that they may bar from their common assembly those who do disreputable things, while those who are not such they welcome with their whole soul and make better day by day.
And what a discipline they keep toward those who sin, especially the licentious, whom they drive out of the community, these people who, according to Celsus, are like those who put on the most disreputable displays in the market-places! The revered school of the Pythagoreans used to build cenotaphs for those who fell away from their philosophy, reckoning that they had become dead men. But Christians mourn as dead those who have been overcome by licentiousness or some other outrage, as men lost and dead to God. And if they show a change worth noting, they receive them back later, as men risen from the dead, after a longer time than is required of those being introduced at the start; but those who have fallen after coming to the word they do not enroll in any office or position of leadership in what is called the church of God.
Greek
Εἰ δ᾿ ἐκεῖνοι οὐκ ἔγκλητοι τοῦτο πράττοντες, ἴδωμεν εἰ μὴ Χριστιανοὶ μᾶλλον καὶ τούτων βέλτιον πλήθη ἐπὶ καλοκἀγαθίαν προκαλοῦνται. οἱ μὲν γὰρ δημοσίᾳ διαλεγόμενοι φιλόσοφοι οὐ φυλοκρινοῦσι τοὺς ἀκούοντας. ἀλλ᾿ ὁ βουλόμενος ἕστηκε καὶ ἀκούει· Χριστιανοὶ δὲ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν αὐτοῖς προβασανίσαντες τῶν ἀκούειν σφῶν βουλομένων τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ κατ᾿ ἰδίαν αὐτοῖς προεπᾴσαντες, ἐπὰν δοκῶσιν αὐτάρκως οἱ ἀκροαταὶ πρὶν εἰς τὸ κοινὸν εἰσελθεῖν ἐπιδεδωκέναι πρὸς τὸ θέλειν καλῶς βιοῦν, τὸ τηνικάδε αὐτοὺς εἰσάγουσιν, ἰδίᾳ μὲν ποιήσαντες τάγμα τῶν ἄρτι ἀρχομένων καὶ εἰσαγομένων καὶ οὐδέπω τὸ σύμβολον τοῦ ἀποκεκαθάρθαι ἀνειληφότων, ἕτερον δὲ τὸ τῶν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν παραστησάντων ἑαυτῶν τὴν προαίρεσιν οὐκ ἄλλο τι βούλεσθαι ἢ τὰ Χριστιανοῖς δοκοῦντα· παρ᾿ οἷς εἰσι τινὲς τεταγμένοι πρὸς τὸ φιλοπευστεῖν τοὺς βίους καὶ τὰς ἀγωγὰς τῶν προσιόντων, ἵνα τοὺς μὲν τὰ ἐπίῤῥητα πράττοντας ἀποκωλύσωσιν ἥκειν ἐπὶ τὸν κοινὸν αὐτῶν σύλλογον τοὺς δὲ μὴ τοιούτους ὅλῃ ψυχῇ ἀποδεχόμενοι βελτίους ὁσημέραι κατασκευάζωσιν. οἵα δ᾿ ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἀγωγὴ καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτανόντων καὶ μάλιστα τῶν ἀκολασταινόντων, οὓς ἀπε λαύνουσι τοῦ κοινοῦ οἱ κατὰ τὸν Κέλσον παραπλήσιοι τοῖς ἐν ταῖς ἀγοραῖς τὰ ἐπιῤῥητότα (τα) ἐπιδεικνυμένοις. καὶ τὸ μὲν τῶν Πυθαγορείων σεμνὸν διδασκαλεῖον κενοτάφια τῶν ἀποστάντων τῆς σφῶν φιλοσοφίας κατεσκεύαζε. λογιζόμενον νεκροὺς αὐτοὺς γεγονέναι· οὗτοι δὲ ὡς ἀπολωλότας καὶ τεθνηκότας τῷ θεῷ τοὺς ὑπ᾿ ἀσελγείας ἤ τινος ἀτόπου νενικημένους ὡς νεκροὺς πενθοῦσι. καὶ ὡς ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστάντας. ἐὰν ἀξιόλογον ἐνδείξωνται μεταβολὴν, χρόνῳ πλείονι τῶν κατ᾿ ἀρχὰς εἰσαγομένων ὕστερόν ποτε προσίενται· εἰς οὐδεμίαν ἀρχὴν καὶ προστασίαν τῆς λεγομένης ἐκκλησίας τοῦ θεοῦ καταλέγοντες τοὺς φθάσαντας μετὰ τὸ προσεληλυθέναι τῷ λόγῳ ἐπταικέναι.