Allegory allowed for the gods but not for Moses

In what follows, while accusing the history written by Moses, he finds fault with those who interpret it figuratively and allegorically. One might say to this most noble man, who gave his own book the title True Doctrine: “Why on earth, sir, do you speak with reverence of the records that gods fell into such great calamities as your wise poets and philosophers describe, that they engaged in abominable unions, made war on their fathers and castrated them, and that they dared, did and suffered such things? And yet when Moses says nothing of the kind about God, nor even about holy angels, but tells far lesser things about men (for no one in his writings dared what Cronus did against Uranus, nor what Zeus did against his father, nor did ‘the father of men and gods’ (Homer, Iliad 1.544) lie with his own daughter), do you people think that he leads astray those who received laws from him, and that they have been deceived?”

It seems to me that Celsus is doing something like Plato’s Thrasymachus, who would not allow Socrates to answer as he wished about justice, but said: “See that you do not say that the just is the advantageous, or what is needful, or anything else of that sort” (Plato, Republic 336c–d). For Celsus too, having accused (as he supposes) the histories in Moses, and having blamed those who allegorize them while also giving them some praise, saying they are “the more reasonable,” as it were prevents those who are able from making a defence that answers to the true nature of the matters, once he has made his accusations as he pleases.