Celsus asserts but never proves
And you who read Celsus’s writing, see whether it is not these things that his words hint at: “they set about tracing their descent back to a first stock of sorcerers and deceivers, calling to witness faint and ambiguous sayings hidden away somewhere in darkness.” For these names are hidden, and are not in the light or in the knowledge of the many. In our view they are not ambiguous, even if they are taken up by those who are strangers to our worship of God. But in the view of Celsus, who does not show what is ambiguous about the sayings, the charge has been tossed in, I do not know how.
Yet, if he wished to overturn fairly the genealogy which he thought the Jews, who boast of Abraham and his descendants, had most shamelessly adopted, he ought to have set out everything that bears on the subject. He ought first to have pleaded its case with whatever plausibility he thought it had, and after that to have overturned it nobly with what seemed to him the truth and with the arguments for that truth.
But neither Celsus nor anyone else, in treating the nature of names used for works of power, will be able to give an exact account of them and to prove that the men were contemptible whose very names have power not only among their own people but also among strangers.
He ought also to have shown how we deceive our hearers, as he supposes, by misinterpreting what concerns these names “to the ignorant and foolish”, while he himself, who boasts that he is neither ignorant nor foolish, gives the true interpretation of them.
He has also tossed in, in what he says about these names from which the Jews trace their descent, that never in all the long time before had there been any dispute over such names, but that now the Jews dispute about them with certain others, whom he did not name. Let anyone who wishes show who these claimants are, who argue against the Jews, with even some show of plausibility, that Jews and Christians do not give a sound report about the men to whom the names belong, while others are the ones who have grasped the wisest and truest things about them. But we are persuaded that no one will be able to do such a thing, since it is evident that the names have been taken from the Hebrew language, which is found among the Jews alone.
Greek
Καὶ ὅρα ὁ ἐντυγχάνων τῇ Κέλσου γραφῇ εἰ μὴ ταῦτ᾿ αἰνίττεται τὸ καὶ ἐπεχείρησαν γενεαλογῆσαι αὑτοὺς ἀπὸ πρώτης σπορᾶς γοήτων καὶ πλάνων ἀνθρώπων, ἀμυδρὰς καὶ ἀμφιβόλους φωνὰς ἐν σκότῳ που κρυφίους ἐπιμαρτυρόμενοι. κρύφια γὰρ καὶ οὐκ ἐν φωτὶ καὶ γνώσει πολλῶν ἐστι τὰ ὀνόματα ταῦτα. καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς μὲν οὐκ ἀμφίβολα. κἂν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων τῆς ἡμετέρας θεοσεβείας παραλαμβάνηται· κατὰ δὲ Κέλσον, οὐ παριστάντα τὸ τῶν φωνῶν ἀμφίβολον, οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως παρέῤῥιπται. καίτοι γε ἐχρῆν αὐτὸν, εἴπερ εὐγνωμόνως ἀνατρέπειν ἐβούλετο ἣν ᾠήθη ἀναισχυντότατα παρειλῆφθαι γενεαλογίαν Ἰουδαίοις αὐχοῦσι τὸν Ἀβραὰμ καὶ τοὺς ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, ὅλα ἐκθέσθαι τὰ κατὰ τὸν τόπον καὶ πρότερον συναγορεῦσαι ᾗ ἐνόμιζε πιθανότητι καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο γενναίως ἀνατρέψαι τῇ φαινομένῃ αὐτῷ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς λογίοις τὰ κατὰ τὸν τόπον. ἀλλ᾿ οὔτε Κέλσος οὔτ᾿ ἄλλος τις δυνήσεται τὰ περὶ φύσεως ὀνομάτων εἰς δυνάμεις παραλαμβανομένων διαλαμβάνων τὸν ἀκριβῆ περὶ τούτων παραστῆσαι λόγον καὶ ἐλέγξαι, ὡς εὐκαταφρόνητοι γεγόνασιν ἄνθρωποι, ὧν καὶ αἱ ὀνομασίαι μόνον οὐ παρὰ τοῖς οἰκείοις μόνοις ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις δύνανται. ἔδει δ᾿ αὐτὸν παραθέσθαι, πῶς ἡμεῖς μὲν τοῖς ἀμαθέσι καὶ ἀνοήτοις παρεξηγούμενοι τὰ περὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων τούτων ἀπατῶμεν, ὡς οἴεται, τοὺς ἀκούοντας, αὐτὸς δὲ, ὁ αὐχῶν εἶναι μὴ ἀμαθὴς μηδὲ ἀνόητος, τὴν ἀληθῆ λέγει περὶ τούτων ἑρμηνείαν. παρέῤῥιψε δ᾿ ἐν τοῖς κατὰ τὰ ὀνόματα ταῦτα, ἀφ᾿ ὧν γενεαλογοῦνται Ἰουδαῖοι, ὅτι οὐδὲ πώποτ᾿ ἐν πολλῷ τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ ἀμφισβήτησις γεγένηται περὶ τῶν τοιῶνδε ὀνομάτων, ἀλλὰ νῦν Ἰουδαῖοι πρὸς ἑτέρους τινὰς, οὓς οὐκ ὠνόμασε, περὶ τούτων ἀμφισβητοῦσι. δεικνύτω γὰρ ὁ βουλόμενος, τίνες οἱ ἐπιδικαζόμενοι καὶ κἂν πιθανότητι χρώμενοι κατὰ Ἰουδαίων πρὸς τὸ μὴ ὑγιῶς μὲν Ἰουδαίους καὶ Χριστιανοὺς τὰ περὶ τούτων ἀπαγγέλλειν, καθ᾿ ὧν κεῖται τὰ ὀνόματα, ἑτέρους δ᾿ εἶναι τοὺς (τὰ) σοφώτατα καὶ τὰ ἀληθέστατα περὶ τούτων διειληφότας. ἀλλὰ πεπείσμεθα ὅτι οὐ δυνήσονται τὸ τοιοῦτον ποιῆσαί τινες, ἐναργοῦς ὄντος τοῦ τὰ ὀνόματα ἀπὸ τῆς Ἑβραίων εἰλῆφθαι διαλέκτου, παρὰ μόνοις Ἰουδαίοις εὑρισκομένης.