Milk for beginners, solid food for the mature
For our Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who were Greeks but not yet cleansed in their ways, says: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to take it. Indeed, even now you are still not able, for you are still fleshly. For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and walking in a merely human way?” (1 Corinthians 3:2–3). The same man, knowing that some things are food for a more mature soul, while the teachings for beginners are likened to the milk of infants, says: “And you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food belongs to the mature, to those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:12–14).
Would those, then, who believe that these words are well spoken suppose that what is fine in the word would never be spoken in a gathering of sensible men, but that wherever they see adolescents, a crowd of house-slaves and a throng of foolish people, there they bring the divine and sacred things into the open and preen themselves on them before such people? No: it is plain to anyone who examines the whole intent of our writings that Celsus, hating the Christian race just as the uneducated common people do, says such things without examination, and falsely.
Greek
Γέγραπται γὰρ παρὰ τῷ Παύλῳ ἡμῶν Κορινθίοις ἐπιστέλλοντι, Ἕλλησι μὲν, οὐ κεκαθαρμένοις δέ πω τὰ ἤθη· „γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα, οὐ βρῶμα· οὔπω γὰρ ἐδύνασθε. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ ἔτι νῦν δύνασθε· ἔτι γὰρ σαρκικοί ἐστε. ὅπου γὰρ ἐν ὑμῖν ζῆλος καὶ ἔρις, οὐχὶ σαρκικοί ἐστε καὶ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον περιπατεῖτε;“ ὁ δ᾿ αὐτὸς οὗτος ἐπιστάμενος (τὰ) μέν τινα τροφὴν εἶναι τελειοτέρας ψυχῆς. τὰ δὲ τῶν εἰσαγομένων παραβάλλεσθαι γάλακτι νηπίων, φησί· „καὶ γεγόνατε χρείαν ἔχοντες γάλακτος. οὐ στερεᾶς τροφῆς. πᾶς γὰρ ὁ μετέχων γάλακτος ἄπειρος λόγου δικαιοσύνης, νήπιος γάρ ἐστι· τελείων δέ ἐστιν ἡ στερεὰ τροφὴ. τῶν διὰ τὴν ἕξιν τὰ αἰσθητήρια γεγυμνασμένα ἐχόντων πρὸς διάκρισιν καλοῦ τε καὶ κακοῦ.“ ἆρ᾿ οὖν οἱ τούτοις ὡς καλῶς εἰρημένοις πιστεύοντες ὑπολάβοιεν ἂν τὰ καλὰ τοῦ λόγου εἰς μὲν φρονίμων ἀνδρῶν σύλλογον οὐκ ἄν ποτε λεχθήσεσθαι, ἔνθα δ᾿ ἂν ὁρῶσι μειράκια καὶ οἰκοτρίβων ὄχλον καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀνοήτων ὅμιλον, ἐνταῦθα τὰ θεῖα καὶ σεμνὰ φέρειν εἰς μέσον καὶ παρὰ τοῖς τοιούτοις περὶ αὐτῶν ἐγκαλλωπίζεσθαι; ἀλλὰ σαφὲς τῷ ἐξετάζοντι ὅλον τὸ βούλημα τῶν ἡμετέρων γραμμάτων ὅτι ἀπεχθόμενος ὁμοίως τοῖς ἰδιωτικοῖς δήμοις ὁ Κέλσος πρὸς τὸ Χριστιανῶν γένος τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀνεξετάστως καὶ ψευδόμενος λέγει.