Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 2.49

Jesus turned his disciples away, not from merely paying attention to magicians and those who promise to perform wonders by some method or other (the disciples had no need of that warning), but from those who proclaim themselves to be God's Christ and try, through fantasies of their own making, to lure Jesus' disciples back to themselves. He warned them in two passages. In the first he said: "If anyone tells you, 'Look, here is the Messiah!' or 'There he is!' do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out; 'Look, he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:23-24, 26-27). In the second he said: "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not eat in your name and drink in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works?' And I will tell them, 'Depart from me, for you are workers of lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:22-23).

Celsus, wanting to assimilate Jesus' mighty works to the sorcery practiced among people, quotes him in these very words: "O Light and Truth, with his own voice he openly proclaims, as you also have written, that others will come to you using similar powers, evil men and sorcerers, and he names some Satan as the one devising such things." By this reasoning Celsus makes himself guilty, as though these works were not divine but the deeds of evil agents. Yet, compelled by the truth, he has disclosed both what others do and has brought his own position under scrutiny. How, then, is it not absurd to judge the one as God and the others as sorcerers on the basis of the same works? For what stronger witness could the others, who are evil, possibly invoke for themselves than these very works? Celsus himself has conceded that these things are not marks of a divine nature but tokens of certain deceivers and thoroughly wicked men.

Consider, then, whether Celsus is not clearly convicted of distorting the argument here. Jesus speaks one way about those who will perform "signs and wonders," while the Jew in Celsus's dialogue says something quite different. If Jesus had merely told his disciples to beware of those who promise great things without specifying what they claim to be, Celsus's suspicion might have had some foothold. But Jesus warns us to beware of those who promise to be "the Christ" — a claim sorcerers do not make — and he also says that some who live wickedly in his name will perform powers and cast out demons. Rather, if one must put it this way, the sorcery of those in that camp and every suspicion attached to them are exposed for what they are, while the divinity of Christ and the divinity of his disciples are affirmed. For it is possible that someone, using his name — I do not know how — may be energized by some power to appear to accomplish works similar to Christ's, and that others, in the name of Jesus, may do things resembling those of his genuine disciples.