1. Holy Ambrose, we now begin a fifth book in reply to Celsus' treatise, not with any desire to talk a great deal—which is forbidden since by so doing we would not avoid sin—but attempting as far as possible not to leave any of his statements unexamined, and especially where he might seem to some people to have brought clever charges against us or the Jews. And if it were possible for us with our argument to penetrate the consciousness of every single reader of his treatise and to extract each dart which wounds anyone who has not been completely protected by the whole armour of God, and to apply a spiritual medicine which would heal the wound made by Celsus which causes people who pay attention to his arguments to be unhealthy in their faith, then we would have done so. But it is God's work to dwell invisibly by His Spirit and by the Spirit of Christ in those in whom He judges it right to dwell. Whereas it is our task, since we try to confirm men's faith by arguments and treatises, to do all in our power that we may be called ‘workmen who need not to be ashamed, handling rightly the word of truth’. One of all these tasks seems to us to be that of demolishing Celsus' plausible arguments to the best of our ability, and to perform faithfully the work which you have enjoined upon us.