Against Celsus 5.8

Since we claim he has been confused by certain things he misheard, come, let us make these matters clear as best we can, and show that, while Celsus thinks it Jewish to worship heaven and the angels in it, such a thing is not Jewish but a transgression of Judaism, just like worshipping the sun and moon and stars, and indeed statues. At any rate, you will find especially in Jeremiah the word of God, through the prophet, reproaching the Jewish people for worshipping such things and sacrificing "to the queen of heaven" and "to all the host of heaven." And the writings of the Christians too, accusing the sins committed among the Jews, show that these sins were committed by them when God had forsaken that people for certain sins. For in the Acts of the Apostles it is written about the Jews: "But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you offer me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel? And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship them." And in Paul, who was exactly trained in Jewish ways and later became a Christian through a wondrous appearance of Jesus, the following is said in the letter to the Colossians: "Let no one disqualify you, insisting on humility and the worship of angels, taking his stand on what he has seen, puffed up without reason by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, supplied and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God." Celsus, having neither read nor learned these things, has somehow represented the Jews as not breaking the law by worshipping heaven and the angels in it.