The prophets did not borrow from Plato
Many things could also be found in Moses and the prophets, who are older not only than Plato but even than Homer and than the invention of letters among the Greeks, things worthy of the grace God gave them and filled with greatness of mind. These men did not, as Celsus supposes, say such things because they had misheard Plato. For how could they have heard a man who had not yet been born?
And even if someone applies Celsus’s argument to the apostles of Jesus, who lived later than Plato, consider whether it is not unbelievable on the face of it to say that Paul the tentmaker (Acts 18:3), Peter the fisherman (Matthew 4:18), and John, who left his father’s nets (Matthew 4:21–22), handed down such teaching about God because they had misheard what Plato said in his letters.
Celsus has already harped many times on the charge that people are required to believe at once, and now he says it again as if it were something new beside what he said before. What we have said in answer to this is enough for us.
Since he also sets out another passage of Plato, in which he says that wisdom shines out upon those who practise philosophy in Plato’s way “when they use questions and answers” (Plato, Seventh Letter 344b), come, let us show from the sacred writings that the divine word also urges us toward dialectic. In one place Solomon says, “Instruction left unexamined goes astray” (Proverbs 10:17); in another Jesus son of Sirach, who left us the book called Wisdom, says, “The knowledge of the senseless man is unexamined talk” (Sirach 21:18). So it is rather among us that kindly refutations are found, among those who have learned that the one who presides over the word must be able “to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9).
But if some are careless, and do not train themselves to attend to the divine readings, to “search the Scriptures” (John 5:39), and, as Jesus commanded, to seek the meaning of the Scriptures, to ask God about them, and to knock at what is shut in them (Matthew 7:7), the word is not for that reason empty of wisdom.
Greek
Πολλὰ δ᾿ ἂν καὶ παρὰ τῷ Μωϋσεῖ εὑρεθείη καὶ τοῖς προφήταις, οὐ μόνον Πλάτωνος ἀλλὰ καὶ Ὁμήρου καὶ τῆς τῶν παρ᾿ Ἕλλησι γραμμάτων εὑρέσεως πρεσβυτέροις, ἄξια τῆς εἰς αὐτοὺς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ μεγαλονοίας πεπληρωμένα· οἵτινες οὐχ, ὡς οἴεται Κέλσος, παρακούσαντες τοῦ Πλάτωνος τοιαῦτ᾿ εἰρήκασι. πῶς γὰρ οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν τοῦ μηδέπω γενομένου αὐτοὺς ἀκηκοέναι; ἵνα δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς Ἰησοῦ ἀποστόλους τις, νεωτέρους γενομένους Πλάτωνος, ἀναγάγῃ τὸν Κέλσου λόγον, ὅρα εἰ μὴ αὐτόθεν ἀπίθανόν ἐστι τὸ λέγειν Παῦλον τὸν σκηνοποιὸν καὶ Πέτρον τὸν ἁλιέα καὶ Ἰωάννην τὸν καταλιπόντα τὰ δίκτυα τοῦ πατρὸς, παρακούσαντας τῶν Πλάτωνι ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς εἰρημένων, τοιαῦτα περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ παραδεδωκέναι. πολλάκις δὲ ἤδη ὁ Κέλσος θρυλήσας ὡς ἀξιούμενον εὐθέως πιστεύειν, ὡς καινόν τι παρὰ τὰ πρότερον εἰρημένα πάλιν αὐτό φησιν· ἀρκεῖ δ᾿ ἡμῖν τὰ εἰς ταῦτα λελεγμένα. ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλην λέξιν ἐκτίθεται Πλάτωνος δι᾿ ὧν φησιν, „ἐρωτήσεσι καὶ ἀποκρίσεσι χρωμένων“ ἐλλάμπειν φρόνησιν τοῖς κατ᾿ αὐτὸν φιλοσοφοῦσι, φέρε παραδείξωμεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων ὅτι προτρέπει καὶ ὁ θεῖος λόγος ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ διαλεκτικὴν, ὅπου μὲν Σολομῶντος λέγοντος· „παιδεία δὲ ἀνεξέλεγκτος πλανᾶται,“ ὅπου δὲ τοῦ τὸ σύγγραμμα τὴν Σοφίαν ἡμῖν καταλιπόντος Ἰησοῦ υἱοῦ Σιρὰχ φάσκοντος· „γνῶσις ἀσυνέτου ἀδιεξέταστοι λόγοι.“ εὐμενεῖς οὖν ἔλεγχοι παρ᾿ ἡμῖν εἰσι μᾶλλον. τοῖς μαθοῦσιν ὅτι δεῖ τὸν προϊστάμενον τοῦ λόγου δυνατὸν εἶναι „τοὺς ἀντιλέγοντας ἐλέγχειν.“ εἰ δὲ ῥᾳθυμοῦσί τινες, οὐκ ἀσκοῦντες προσέχειν ταῖς θείαις ἀναγνώσεσι καὶ ἐρευνᾶν „τὰς γραφὰς“ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ζητεῖν τὴν διάνοιαν τῶν γραφῶν καὶ αἰτεῖν περὶ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ κρούειν αὐτῶν τὰ κεκλεισμένα, οὐ παρὰ τοῦτο ὁ λόγος κενός ἐστι σοφίας.