Against Celsus 8.9

See how unexamined is his remark, “For if you serve anything else in the universe,” in which he suggests that the service of God is brought about for us, without any harm to ourselves, by simply attaching ourselves to anything that belongs to God. But as though aware that he had not spoken soundly in saying, “For if you serve anything else in the universe,” he then takes it up again and adds a correction to what he said, in this way: “It is not permitted for anyone to be honoured to whom this has not been granted by him.” And let us ask Celsus about those honoured as gods or demons or even heroes: from where, my good man, can you show that the right to be honoured has been granted to them by God, and not by the ignorance and stupidity of men who have gone astray and fallen away from the one who is properly honoured? At any rate, as you said a little before, Celsus, Hadrian's favourite is honoured, and surely you will not say that it was granted by the God of the universe to Antinous to be honoured as a god. We shall say the same about the others, demanding proof that the right to be honoured was granted them by the God over all. And if he retorts the same thing to us about Jesus, we shall show that it was granted to him by God to be honoured, “so that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father.” For the prophecies before his birth were commendations of the honour due to him. And the marvellous things he did, not by sorcery, as Celsus thinks, but by a divinity foretold by the prophets, had God's testimony; so that “whoever honours the Son,” who is the Word, by doing nothing contrary to reason may be benefited by honouring him; and by honouring him who is the Truth, may become better from honouring truth, and likewise from honouring wisdom and righteousness and all that the divine words say the Son of God is.