Against Celsus 1.24

After this he says that "the goatherds and shepherds thought there was one God, whether they call him the Most High, or Adonai, or the Heavenly One, or Sabaoth, or however and in whatever way they like to name this world; and they knew nothing more." And next he says that it makes no difference to call the God over all by the name current among the Greeks, Zeus, or by such-and-such a name, say, among the Indians, or such-and-such among the Egyptians. To this we must say that a deep and secret question arises here, the one about the nature of names: whether, as Aristotle thinks, names are by convention; or, as those of the Stoa believe, by nature, the first sounds imitating the things of which the names are names—on which ground they also introduce certain elements of etymology; or, as Epicurus teaches, differently from what the Stoics think, names are by nature, the first human beings having burst out with certain sounds about things. If, then, we can establish in a special treatise the nature of effective names, some of which the wise men of the Egyptians use, or the learned among the Persian magi, or the Brahmans or Samanaeans among the philosophers of India, and so on for each of the nations; and if we can prove that so-called magic is not, as the followers of Epicurus and Aristotle think, something altogether incoherent, but, as those skilled in it demonstrate, coherent, though having reasons known to very few—then we will say that the name Sabaoth, and Adonai, and the other names handed down among the Hebrews with great reverence, are not applied to ordinary and created things but to a certain secret theology that refers to the maker of the universe. That is why these names, when spoken with the sequence that is woven together with them, can be employed for certain purposes; while others, current in the Egyptian tongue, apply to certain demons who can do only such-and-such things, and others in the Persian language to other powers, and so on for each of the nations. And so it will be found that the names of the demons on earth, who have been allotted different places, are current in the languages proper to each place and nation. So one who has gained a nobler understanding of these things, even a little, will take care not to apply different names to different things wrongly, lest he suffer the same as those who wrongly give the name "god" to lifeless matter, or drag down the title "good" from the first cause, or from virtue and the beautiful, to blind wealth, or to the proportion of flesh and blood and bones in health and fitness, or to what is thought noble birth.