Against Celsus 4.11

After this, wanting to show us that we say nothing strange or new about the flood or the conflagration, but that, having misheard what is said about them among the Greeks or barbarians, we have believed our Scriptures about them, he says this: “This too occurred to them from misunderstanding those others: that in cycles of long periods of time, and at the returns and conjunctions of the stars, conflagrations and floods happen, and that after the last flood, in the time of Deucalion, the cycle, according to the alternation of the universe, requires a conflagration. This made them say, in their mistaken opinion, that God will come down like a torturer bearing fire.” To this we shall say that I do not know how Celsus, who has read much and displays knowledge of many histories, paid no attention to the antiquity of Moses, who is recorded by some Greek writers to have lived in the time of Inachus the father of Phoroneus, and is acknowledged by the Egyptians to be most ancient, and also by those who have written the history of Phoenicia. Let whoever wishes read the two books of Flavius Josephus on the antiquity of the Jews, so that he may learn in what way Moses was more ancient than those who said that floods and conflagrations happen in the world in long cycles of time; whom Celsus says the Jews and Christians misheard, and, not understanding the teaching about the conflagration, said that God will come down like a torturer bearing fire.