1. I have already succeeded in completing seven books. But I now intend to begin an eighth. May God and His only-begotten Son the Logos be with us that Celsus' lies, which are wrongly entitled The True Doctrine, may receive a proper refutation and that the doctrines of Christianity may be mightily proved to be true by the effect of the defence. We pray that we may say with Paul's sincerity the words ‘We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us’, and may be ambassadors for Christ to men, as the Logos of God beseeches them to enter into friendship with himself, desiring to make at home with righteousness, truth, and the other virtues, those who before accepting the doctrines of Jesus Christ spent their life in darkness about God and ignorance about the Creator. And again, I would ask that God may give us the noble and true Word, the Lord powerful and mighty in battle against evil. However, we now have to go on to the next passage of Celsus and give our reply to it.

2. Earlier he put the question to us, Why do we not worship daemons? And to his remarks about daemons we replied in accordance with the meaning of the divine word as it appears to us. Then, because he wants us to worship daemons, he next introduces us as replying to his question ‘It is impossible for the same man to serve several masters’ This, he thinks, is a rebellious utterance of people who, as he puts it, wall themselves off and break away from the rest of mankind.