Against Celsus 3.16

What manifold things we use to draw people, or what terrors we invent, as Celsus writes without proof, let anyone who wishes show; unless Celsus means by invented terrors the teaching about God as judge and about human beings judged for all they have done, set out with various arguments, some from the Scriptures and some from probable reasoning. And yet (for truth is dear) Celsus says toward the end that “neither these people nor I nor any other human being should reject the doctrine that the unjust will be punished and the just deemed worthy of rewards.” What terrors, then, apart from the teaching about punishment, do we invent to draw people? And when he says that “inventing misunderstandings of the ancient doctrine, we play the flute to people beforehand and fill their ears, like those who make a din around people in Corybantic frenzy,” we shall say to him: “Misunderstandings of what ancient doctrine?” For whether he means the Greek doctrine, which taught about the courts beneath the earth, or the Jewish, which among other things prophesied about the life after this one, he could not show that we who try to believe with reason live by such doctrines because we have misunderstood the truth.