1. Celsus' first main point in his desire to attack Christianity is that the Christians secretly make associations with one another contrary to the laws, because societies which are public are allowed by the laws, but secret societies are illegal. And wishing to slander the so-called love (agape) which Christians have for one another, he says that it exists because of the common danger and is more powerful than any oath. As he talks much of the common law saying that the associations of the Christians violate this, I have to make this reply. Suppose that a man were living among the Scythians whose laws are contrary to the divine law, who had no opportunity to go elsewhere and was compelled to live among them; such a man for the sake of the true law, though illegal among the Scythians, would rightly form associations with like-minded people contrary to the laws of the Scythians. So, at the bar of truth, the laws of the nations such as those about images and the godless polytheism are laws of the Scythians or, if possible, more impious than theirs. Therefore it is not wrong to form associations against the laws for the sake of truth. For just as it would be right for people to form associations secretly to kill a tyrant who had seized control of their city, so too, since the devil, as Christians call him, and falsehood reign as tyrants, Christians form associations against the devil contrary to his laws, in order to save others whom they might be able to persuade to abandon the law which is like that of the Scythians and of a tyrant.