And the absurdity of it! "Why was he not sent to the sinless as well as to sinners? What harm is there in not having sinned?"[11] Listen to them! "The unjust, if he humble himself from his iniquity, God will receive; but the just, if he look up to Him with virtue from beginning to end, him He will not receive."[12] Celsus' own view is very different--"It must be clear to everybody, I should think, that those, who are sinners by nature and training, none could change, {243} not even by punishment--to say nothing of doing it by pity! For to change nature completely is very difficult; and those who have not sinned are better partners in life."[13] Christians in fact make God into a sentimentalist--"the slave of pity for those who mourn"[14] to the point of injustice. [Sidenote: The ecclesia of worms] Jews and Christians seem to Celsus "like a swarm of bats--or ants creeping out of their nest--or frogs holding a symposium round a swamp--or worms in conventicle (_ekklesiaxiousi_) in a corner of the mud[15]--debating which of them are the more sinful, and saying 'God reveals all things to us beforehand and gives us warning; he forsakes the whole universe and the course of the heavenly spheres, and all this great earth he neglects, to dwell with us alone; to us alone he despatches heralds, and never ceases to send and to seek how we may dwell with him for ever.'" "God is," say the worms, "and after him come we, brought into being by him (_hup' autou gegonotes_), in all things like unto God; and to us all things are subjected, earth and water and air and stars; for our sake all things are, and to serve us they are appointed." "Some of us," continue the worms ("he means us," says Origen)--"some of us sin, so God will come, or else he will send his son, that he may burn up the unrighteous, and that the rest of us may have eternal life with him."[16]