If you invalidate this thought (_dogma_), probably the Emperor will punish you. For if all men were to do as you do, nothing will prevent the Emperor being left alone and deserted,[99] and all things on earth falling into the power of the {257} most lawless and barbarous savages, with the result that neither of your religion nor of the true wisdom would there be left among men so much as the name.[100] You will hardly allege that if the Romans were persuaded by you and forsook all their usages as to gods and men, and called upon your 'Most High' or whatever you like, he would descend and fight for them and they would need no other help. For before now that same God promised (as you say) this and much more to those who served him, and you see all the good he has done them and you. As for them [the Jews], instead of being masters of all the earth, they have not a clod nor a hearthstone left them; while you--if there is any of you left in hiding, search is being made for him to put him to death."[101] The Christian sentiment that it is desirable for all who inhabit the Empire, Greeks and barbarians, Asia, Europe and Libya, to agree to one law or custom, is foolish and impracticable.[102] So Celsus calls on the Christians "to come to the help of the Emperor with all their might and labour with him as right requires, fight on his behalf, take the field with him, if he call on you, and share the command of the legions with him[103]--yes, and be magistrates, if need be, and to do this for the salvation of laws and religion."[104] It will be noted that, so far as our fragments serve us, Celsus confines himself essentially to the charges of folly, perversity, and want of national feeling. An excessive opinion of the value of the human soul and an absurd fancy of God's interest in man are two of the chief faults he sees in Christianity.[105] He sees well, for the love of God our Father and the infinite significance of the meanest and commonest and most depraved of men were after all the cardinal doctrines of the new faith. There can be no compromise between the Christian conception of the Ecclesia of God and Celsus' contempt for an "ecclesia of worms in a pool"; nor between the "Abba Father" of Jesus and the aloof and philosophic God of Celsus "away beyond everything." These two {258} contrasts bring into clear relief the essentially new features of Christianity, and from the standpoint of ancient philosophy they were foolish and arbitrary fancies. That standpoint was unquestioned by Celsus. [Sidenote: The failure of Celsus]