Against Celsus 3.1

In the first book of our reply to the boastful title of Celsus, who entitled the book he composed against us True Discourse, we treated, as you commanded, most faithful Ambrose, and as well as we could, his preface, and then examined each of his statements in turn, until we came to the speech of the Jew in his book, fashioned against Jesus. In the second we answered, as best we were able, the whole speech of his Jew against us who believe in God through Christ. We now begin this third book, in which we are to contend with what he sets out in his own person. He says that Christians and Jews quarrel with each other most foolishly, and that our dialogue with one another about Christ is no different from what the proverb calls a fight over the shadow of an ass; and he thinks there is nothing worthy of respect in the inquiry of Jews and Christians with each other, since both believe that it was prophesied by a divine Spirit that a Savior would come to the human race, but no longer agree whether the one prophesied has come or not. For we Christians have believed in Jesus as having come according to the prophecies; but most of the Jews are so far from believing in him that those of that time plotted against Jesus, and those of the present day, approving what the Jews then dared against him, malign Jesus as one who by some sorcery pretended to be the one proclaimed by the prophets as coming, who according to the ancestral custom of the Jews is called Christ.