Celsus paints Christians as household workmen

Since, taking pleasure in his account of insults against us, he has added still other things, come, let us set these out as well and see whether it is the Christians who disgrace themselves, or Celsus by what he says. He says: “We see, too, in private houses, wool-workers and cobblers and fullers and the most uneducated and boorish people, who do not dare to utter a word in front of their older and wiser masters; but whenever they get hold of the children privately, and some foolish women along with them, they pour out some astonishing things: that the children must not heed their father and their teachers, but must obey them; that the father and teachers talk nonsense and are senseless, and neither know nor can do anything truly good, their minds already taken up with empty chatter; but that they alone know how one ought to live, and if the children obey them, they will be blessed and will make their home happy.

“And if, while they are speaking, they see one of the schoolteachers coming by, or someone wiser, or even the father himself, the more cautious of them scatter in fright, while the bolder egg the children on to throw off the reins, whispering such things as this: that while the father and the teachers are present they will be neither willing nor able to explain anything good to the children, for they shrink from the stupidity and coarseness of those men, who are utterly corrupt, far gone in wickedness, and who punish them; but if the children wish, they must leave their father and their teachers and go with the women and their little playmates to the women’s quarters, or the cobbler’s shop, or the fuller’s shop, so that they may receive perfection. And by saying these things they win them over.”