Against Celsus 1.61

If Herod plotted against the newborn child—even if Celsus's Jew does not believe that this really happened—it is no wonder. For wickedness is a blind thing, and wishes to conquer fate as though stronger than it. Herod experienced this: he both believed that a king of the Jews had been born and gave his assent openly to this belief, not seeing that either he is certainly a king and will reign, or he will not reign and will be killed in vain. So he wished to kill him, having judgments at war with one another because of his wickedness, moved by the blind and wicked devil, who from the beginning plotted against the Savior, imagining that he was and would be someone great. So an "angel," keeping to the sequence of events, even if Celsus does not believe it, warned Joseph to withdraw with the child and his mother "to Egypt"; and Herod "killed" all the children "in Bethlehem" and "in all its region," intending to kill with them the newborn king of the Jews. For he did not see the sleepless guardian power of those worthy to be guarded and kept for the salvation of human beings, of whom Jesus was first of all, greater in every honor and eminence. He was to be king, not as Herod thought, but as it was fitting for God to give a kingdom for the benefit of its subjects to one who would confer on those subject to him no middling and indifferent benefit, so to speak, but would train them and bring them under laws truly of God. Jesus too knew this; and denying that he was a king in the sense the many understand, but teaching the special character of his kingdom, he says: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, that I should not be handed over to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from this world." If Celsus had seen this, he would not have said: "If it was so that you might not grow up and reign in his place, why, now that you have grown up, do you not reign, but, being the son of God, go about begging so ignobly, cowering from fear and wandering to and fro?" But it is not ignoble to avoid dangers with wise management and not rush into them—not from fear of death, but so as, by living usefully in this life, to benefit others—until the suitable time comes for one who has taken on human nature to die a human death, one that has some benefit for human beings. This is clear to one who has understood that Jesus died for human beings, about which we have spoken as best we could above.