Against Celsus 2.38

After this the Jew says further to us: “Is this, then, what you charge us with, most faithful ones, that we do not think this man a god, nor agree with you that he endured these things for the benefit of mankind, so that we too might despise punishments?” To this we shall say that we charge the Jews, who were brought up on the law and the prophets who proclaimed the Christ beforehand, because they neither refute what we bring before them as proof that this is the Christ, offering the refutation as their defense for not believing, nor, while failing to refute it, believe in the one who was prophesied; who clearly showed in those who became his disciples, even after the time of his embodiment, that he endured these things for the benefit of mankind. The purpose of his first coming was not to judge human deeds, before teaching and testifying about what ought to be done, nor to punish the wicked and save the good, but to sow his own word marvelously and with a more divine power among the whole human race, as the prophets also showed. We further charge them because, when he displayed the power he had, they did not believe, but said that he cast demons out of people's souls “by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” And we charge them because they slander even his love for mankind, since he passed over not only no city but not even any village of Judea, so as to proclaim the kingdom of God everywhere, and accuse him of vagrancy, as a wanderer roving about in an ignoble body. For a body that endured so many labors for the benefit of those everywhere who could hear is not ignoble.