Against Celsus 3.62

Then, slandering what has been said and written for the sake of exhortation to those who have lived badly, which calls them to repentance and the correction of their souls, he says that we claim that God was sent to sinners. He does something like accusing some people for saying that a physician had been sent by a most humane king because of those who were sick in the city. God the Word, then, was sent as physician to sinners, but as teacher of divine mysteries to those already pure and no longer sinning. But Celsus, unable to distinguish these things (for he did not wish to learn), says: “Why was he not sent to those without sin? What evil is it not to have sinned?” To this we say that if he calls “without sin” those who no longer sin, our Savior Jesus was sent to them too, but not as physician; but if he means by “without sin” those who have never sinned at all (for he did not make the distinction in his wording), we shall say that it is impossible for a man to be without sin in that sense. We say this excepting the man understood to be in Jesus, “who committed no sin.” Maliciously, then, Celsus says of us that we claim that “God will receive the unjust man if he humbles himself because of his wickedness, but will not receive the righteous man if he looks up to him with virtue from the beginning.” We say that it is impossible for a man to look up to God with virtue from the beginning; for wickedness must first exist in men, as Paul too says: “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Nor do we teach about the unjust man that it suffices for him to humble himself because of his wickedness in order to be received by God; but if, condemning himself for his former deeds, he walks “humble” on their account and “well ordered” on account of the later ones, God will accept him.