Against Celsus 1.52

For contentiousness and prejudice are hard things, able to make people shut their eyes even to what is evident, so as not to abandon doctrines that have dyed their souls deeply, to which they have somehow become accustomed, and which have given their souls their quality. A person would more easily abandon his habits in other things, even if he is hard to tear away from them, than those concerning doctrines. Yet not even those do people accustomed to them easily disregard; so those who have become attached to houses, or cities, or villages, or familiar people are not willing to leave them easily. This, then, was the cause for many of the Jews at that time of shutting their eyes to the evidence both of the prophecies and of the wonders that Jesus is recorded to have done and suffered. That human nature is affected in this way will be clear to those who observe that people once prepossessed, even by the most shameful and senseless traditions of their fathers and fellow citizens, are not easily changed. One would not quickly persuade an Egyptian, at any rate, to despise what he has received from his fathers, so as not to regard such-and-such an irrational animal as a god, or not to guard himself even to death against tasting the flesh of such-and-such an animal. If, then, examining this argument at greater length, we have gone through the matters concerning Bethlehem and the prophecy about it, we think we have done so necessarily, answering those who might say: if the prophecies about Jesus among the Jews were so clear, why, when he came, did they not assent to his teaching and change over to the better things Jesus showed? But let no one reproach us believers with something similar, seeing that no contemptible arguments are brought forward about faith in Jesus by those who have learned to uphold them.