Not held together by fear

That “fear of outsiders” does not hold our union together either is clear from this: by God’s will, that fear too has already been at an end for a good while now. And it is likely that the freedom from fear, as regards this life, that believers have come to enjoy will come to an end, whenever those who slander the word in every way come again to think that the cause of the faction, now so great among the multitude of believers, lies in their not being warred upon by the rulers as in former times. For we have learned from the word neither to grow slack in peace and give ourselves up to ease, nor, when the world wars against us, to lose heart and fall away from our love for the God of the universe in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:39).

So we set forth the dignity of our origin plainly, and do not, as Celsus thinks, hide it, when even in those who are only beginning instruction we instil contempt for idols and for all statues, and besides this, raising their thoughts from serving created things instead of God (Romans 1:25), we lift them up to the one who created all things. And we clearly present the one who was prophesied, both from the prophecies about him (and these are many) and from the Gospels and the words of the apostles, as these are handed on with precision to those able to hear with more understanding.