Against Celsus 3.19

And he says that we laugh at the Egyptians, although they present many enigmas that are not contemptible, when they teach that such things are honors paid to eternal ideas and not, as most think, to ephemeral animals; but that we are simpletons, bringing in nothing more dignified than the goats and dogs of the Egyptians in our narratives about Jesus. To this we shall say: “Good sir, do you reasonably exalt in your account the Egyptians' presenting many enigmas that are not contemptible and obscure narratives about their animals, while you do wrong in accusing us, as if persuaded that we say nothing, but everything we say is worthless and contemptible, when we expound what concerns Jesus according to the wisdom of the teaching to those who are perfect in Christianity?” Paul, teaching about them as able to hear the wisdom in Christianity, says: “We speak wisdom among the perfect, but a wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has known.”