Against Celsus 8.18

And in each of those who imitate him in this as far as they can there is an image “after the image of him who created him,” which they form by looking to God with a pure heart, having become “imitators of God.” In short, all Christians try to set up such altars as we have described and such images as we have shown, not lifeless and senseless, nor able to receive greedy demons lying in wait at lifeless things, but able to receive the Spirit of God, who dwells in the images of virtue we have mentioned and in what is “after the image of him who created him” as in his own home; and so too the Spirit of Christ settles on those who are, so to speak, conformed to him. Wishing to show such things, the Word of God recorded God as saying in a promise to the righteous, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” and the Saviour as saying, “If anyone hears my words and does them, I and my Father will come to him and make our home with him.” Let whoever wishes, then, compare the altars I have described with the altars Celsus speaks of, and the images in the soul of those who worship the God of the universe with the images of Phidias and Polyclitus and the like; and he will clearly see that the latter are lifeless and decay with time, while the former remain in the immortal soul as long as the rational soul wishes them to remain in it.