Against Celsus 3.11

He says also that they were all of one mind, not seeing even in this that from the beginning there have been disagreements among believers about the interpretation of the books believed to be divine. While the apostles were still preaching, and the eyewitnesses of Jesus were teaching his lessons, there was no small dispute among the believers from the Jews about those from the nations who were coming to the word: whether they must keep the Jewish customs, or whether the “burden” concerning clean and unclean foods should be removed, as not binding, from those among the nations who had left their ancestral customs and believed in Jesus. Moreover, in the letters of Paul, who lived in the time of those who had seen Jesus, things are found said as if some questions had been raised about the resurrection and about its “having already taken place,” and about the day of the Lord, whether it “has come” or not. And the words, “avoiding the profane empty talk and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed” and “have made shipwreck concerning the faith,” show that from the beginning there were some misinterpretations, when believers had not yet become many, as Celsus thinks.