Against Celsus 4.17

Will not these things, especially when understood as they should be, appear far more dignified than Dionysus, deceived by the Titans, falling from the throne of Zeus, torn apart by them, and afterward put together again and, as it were, coming back to life and going up to heaven? Or are the Greeks permitted to refer such things to the doctrine of the soul and interpret them figuratively, while the door is shut to us for a consistent explanation, harmonious and in agreement everywhere in the Scriptures, which come from the divine Spirit present in pure souls? Celsus, then, did not at all see the intention of our writings; that is why he attacks his own interpretation and not that of the Scriptures. But if he had understood what follows for a soul that will be in eternal life, and what one must think about its being and its origins, he would not have so ridiculed the immortal coming into a mortal body, not according to Plato's transmigration but according to another, loftier contemplation. And he would have seen also one exceptional descent, from great love for mankind, in order to turn back what the divine Scripture mystically called “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” which had come down from the mountains, to which the shepherd in certain parables is said to have come down, leaving on the mountains those that had not gone astray.