Against Celsus 2.51

Celsus had some inkling of Scripture when he made Jesus say that a certain Satan will contrive such things. But he also snatches at the argument, claiming that Jesus does not deny that these things have nothing divine but are the works of wicked men; for he has made them of one kind when they are of different kinds. And just as a wolf is not of one kind with a dog, even if it seems to have something similar in the shape of its body and its voice, nor a wood-pigeon with a dove, so what is accomplished by the power of God has nothing like what comes from sorcery. We shall say this too against Celsus's malicious tricks: do miracles happen by sorcery from wicked daemons, while no miracle is accomplished by the divine and blessed nature? Has human life borne the worse and in no way admitted the better? It seems to me one should set this down as a rule for all cases: where something worse pretends to be of the same kind as the better, there must certainly be, on the opposite side, something better. So too with those who perform things by sorcery: there must certainly also be things done in life by divine working. And it follows for the same person either to do away with both and say that neither happens, or, positing the one, and especially the worse, to acknowledge the better too. If anyone should posit that things happen by sorcery, but not posit that things happen by divine power, he seems to me like one who posits that there are sophisms and plausible arguments that miss the truth while pretending to present it, but that truth and a dialectic free of sophisms dwell nowhere among human beings. If we once accept that it follows from the real existence of magic and sorcery, worked by wicked daemons who are charmed by curious invocations and obey sorcerers, that there must also be found among human beings works of divine power, why should we not test those who profess miracles closely, by their life and character and by what follows their miracles, whether to people's harm or to the correction of their morals: who does such things serving daemons through certain incantations and trickery, and who, having come to a pure and holy standing before God in his soul and spirit, and I think in his body too, and having received some divine spirit, does such things for people's benefit and to turn them to believe in the true God? And if we must once inquire, without being carried away by the miracles, who does such things from the better and who from the worse, so that we neither slander all nor admire and accept all as divine, how will it not be evident from what happened in the case of Moses and of Jesus, when whole nations were formed after their signs, that these men did by divine power what they are recorded to have done? For wickedness and trickery would not have formed a whole nation that passed beyond not only images and things set up by human beings but all created nature, and rose to the uncreated source of the God of the universe.