Hymns to the Sun and to Athena
Then again Celsus, like those who at times recover from demonic possession and then fall back again, says something like this, as though he were sober: “If, however, someone should command one who happens to worship God either to act impiously or to say anything else shameful, he must in no way at all be obeyed; rather than this, one must endure every torture and submit to every kind of death, before one would even think, let alone say, anything unholy about God.” Then again, out of ignorance of our teaching, and besides that because he jumbles everything together, he says this: “But if someone commands you to praise the Sun or Athena, praise them with the utmost eagerness in a fine hymn; in this way you will seem all the more to worship the great God, if you hymn these too; for piety becomes more complete when it passes through all things.”
We answer, then, that we do not wait for someone to command us before we praise the sun, we who have learned to speak well not only of those who are subject to God’s ordering but even of our enemies (compare Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:28). So we praise the sun as a fine work of God, which keeps the laws of God and hears the words, “Praise the Lord, sun and moon” (Psalm 148:3), and which with all its power hymns the Father and Creator of the universe.
As for Athena, however, whom the accounts of the Greeks set beside the sun, they made her the subject of myth, saying, whether with hidden meanings or without them, that she was born fully armed from the head of Zeus; and that once, when Hephaestus pursued her in the wish to destroy her virginity, she escaped him, but that she loved the seed which fell to the earth from his lust and reared it, calling it Erichthonius, “whom once,” they say, “Athena, daughter of Zeus, reared, but the grain-giving earth bore” (Homer, Iliad 2.547–548). And we see that one who accepts Athena, the daughter of Zeus, must accept with her many myths and fictions, which one who flees from myths and seeks the truth would not accept.
Greek
Εἶτα πάλιν ὁ Κέλσος ὁμοίως τοῖς ἀπὸ δαιμονισμοῦ ἔσθ᾿ ὅτε ἀναφέρουσιν εἶτα πάλιν καταπίπτουσιν ὥσπερ νήφων τοιαῦτά τινα λέγων· ἐὰν μέντοι γε κελεύῃ τις, εἰ τύχοι θρησκεύων θεὸν, ἢ ἀσεβεῖν ἢ ἄλλο τι αἰσχρὸν εἰπεῖν, οὐδαμῇ οὐδαμῶς πιστευτέον ἀλλὰ πρὸ τούτων πάσας βασάνους ἐγκαρτερητέον καὶ πάντας θανάτους ὑπομενετέον, πρίν τι ἀνόσιον περὶ θεοῦ μὴ ὅτι γε εἰπεῖν ἀλλὰ μελῆσαι· εἶτα πάλιν ἀπ᾿ ἀγνοίας τῆς περὶ τοῦ ἡμετέρου λόγου καὶ πρὸς ταύτῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ φύρειν τὰ πάντα τοιαῦτά φησιν· ἐὰν δὲ κελεύῃ τις εὐφημῆσαι τὸν Ἥλιον ἢ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν προθυμότατα μετὰ καλοῦ παιᾶνος εὐφημεῖν, οὕτω τοι σέβειν μᾶλλον δόξεις τὸν μέγαν θεὸν, ἐὰν καὶ τούσδε ὑμνῇς· τὸ γὰρ θεοσεβὲς διὰ πάντων διεξιὸν τελεώτερον γίνεται. φαμὲν οὖν ὅτι οὐ περιμένομεν εὐφημῆσαι τὸν Ἥλιον τὸν κελεύοντα, οἱ μαθόντες οὐ μόνον τοὺς τῇ διατάξει ὑποτεταγμένους εὐφημεῖν ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς. εὐφημοῦμεν οὖν Ἥλιον ὡς καλὸν θεοῦ δημιούργημα καὶ τοὺς νόμους φυλάσσον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἀκοῦον τοῦ „αἰνεῖτε τὸν κύριον ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη,“ καὶ ὅση δύναμις ὑμνοῦντα τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν δημιουργὸν τοῦ παντός. Ἀθηνᾶν μέντοι μετὰ Ἡλίου τασσομένην ἐμυθοποίησαν οἱ Ἑλλήνων λόγοι, εἴτ᾿ ἐν ὑπονοίαις εἴτε χωρὶς ὑπονοιῶν φάσκοντες ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Διὸς γεγεννῆσθαι κεφαλῆς καθωπλισμένην· καὶ διωκομένην τότε ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἡφαίστου. βουλομένου αὐτῆς φθεῖραι τὴν παρθενίαν, ἐκπεφευγέναι μὲν αὐτὸν τὴν δ᾿ ἐκ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας πεσοῦσαν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν θορὴν ἀγαπήσασαν ἐκθρέψαι, καλέσασαν Ἐριχθόνιον, τόν ποτε, φασὶν, Ἀθήνη θρέψε, Διὸς θυγάτηρ, τέκε δὲ ζείδωρος ἄρουρα. καὶ ὁρῶμέν γε ὅτι τῷ προσιεμένῳ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, Διὸς θυγατέρα, πολλοὺς μύθους καὶ πλάσματα παρεκδεκτέον, οὓς οὐκ ἂν παραδέχοιτο ὁ φεύγων μὲν μύθους ζητῶν δὲ ἀλήθειαν.