Against Celsus 4.47

After this Celsus, for form's sake, mentions with complete obscurity the dreams of the chief cupbearer, the chief baker, and Pharaoh, and their interpretation, by which Joseph was brought from prison to be entrusted by Pharaoh with the second throne in Egypt. What absurdity, then, did the account of the story have even in itself, that he who entitled his book The True Word, which sets out no doctrines but accuses Christians and Jews, put these things forward as part of his accusation? And he says that the one who had been sold showed kindness to the brothers who had sold him, when they were starving and had been sent to trade with their donkeys; which Celsus did not even set out. And he includes the recognition, wanting I know not what, and showing no absurdity arising from the recognition; for not even Momus himself, so to speak, could reasonably accuse these things, which even without figurative interpretation have great charm. He includes also Joseph, sold as a slave, being set free and going up with a procession to his father's tomb, and thinks the account contains an accusation when he says: “by whom (clearly Joseph) the illustrious and divine race of the Jews, having grown to a multitude in Egypt, was ordered to live as sojourners somewhere outside and to pasture flocks in places of no honor.” From his hateful purpose he added that they were ordered to pasture flocks in places of no honor, without showing how Goshen, a district of Egypt, is without honor. And he called the people's exodus from Egypt a flight, not even mentioning at all what is written in Exodus about the departure of the Hebrews from the land of Egypt. We have set out these things too, to show that Celsus put in the category of accusation and nonsense things that did not appear worthy of accusation even literally, without showing by argument what he thinks is wrong in our Scripture.