After this, Celsus in his own person says, "The Christians and Jews most stupidly contend with each other, and this controversy of theirs about Christ differs in nothing from the proverb about the contention for the shadow of an ass*. There is also nothing venerable in the investigation of the Jews and Christians with each other; both of them believing that there was a certain prophecy from a divine spirit, that a saviour of the human race would appear on the earth, but disagreeing in their opinion whether he who was predicted had appeared or not. "The Jews originating from the Egyptians deserted Egypt through sedition, at the same time despising the religion of the Egyptians. Hence the * This proverb is mentioned by Apuleius at the end of the Ninth Book of his Metamorphosis. There is also another Greek proverb mentioned by Menander, Plato, and many others, [--------], concerning the shadow of an ass, which is said of those who are anxious to know things futile, frivolous, and entirely useless. These two proverbs Apuleius has merged into one. {18} same thing happened to the Christians afterwards, who abandoned the religion of the Jews, as to the Jews who revolted from the Egyptians; for the cause to both of their innovation was a seditious opposition to the common* and established rites of their country. "The Christians at first, when they were few, had but one opinion; but when they became scattered through their multitude, they were again and again divided into sects, and each sect wished to have an establishment of its own. For this was what they desired to effect from the beginning. "But after they were widely dispersed one sect opposed the other, nor did any thing remain common to them except the name of Christians; and even this they were at the same time ashamed to leave as a common appellation: but as to other things, they were the ordinances of men of a different persuasion. "What however is still more wonderful is this, that their doctrine may be [easily] confuted, as consisting of no hypothesis worthy of belief. But their * In the original [--------], but it is necessary to read, conformably to the above translation, [--------] {19} dissension among themselves, the advantage they derive from it, and their dread of those who are not of their belief, give stability to their faith. "The Christians ridicule the Egyptians, though they indicated many and by no means contemptible things through enigmas, when they taught that honours should be paid to _eternal_ ideas, and not, as it appears to the vulgar, to diurnal animals*." Celsus adds, that "The Christians stupidly introduce nothing more venerable than the goats and dogs of the Egyptians in their narrations respecting Jesus.