Celsus’s tale of a revolt from Egypt

Next, Celsus supposes that the Jews, being Egyptians by race, left Egypt after rising in revolt against the Egyptian commonwealth and scorning the religious customs of Egypt. He says that what they did to the Egyptians they have suffered at the hands of those who joined Jesus and believed in him as Christ, and that in both cases the cause of the new movement was revolt against the commonwealth.

We must consider what Celsus has done here. The Egyptians of old treated the race of the Hebrews badly in many ways (Exodus 1:11–14), after the Hebrews had come to dwell in Egypt because of a famine that had seized Judaea (Genesis 47:4). For wronging strangers and suppliants they suffered what a whole nation was bound to suffer at the hands of divine providence, since it had conspired against the whole race of its guests, who had done it no wrong. Struck by scourges from God, they let go, grudgingly, though before long, those whom they were unjustly holding in slavery, to go wherever they wished (Exodus 12:31–32).

Since, then, the Egyptians love themselves and prefer their own countrymen, whatever they are like, even to foreigners who are more just, there is no accusation they have failed to make against Moses and the Hebrews. They do not altogether deny the wonderful works done through Moses, but they say these were done by sorcery and not by divine power. Moses, however, being no sorcerer but a devout man, dedicated to the God of the universe and sharing in a more divine spirit, both laid down laws for the Hebrews as God prompted him and recorded what had happened just as it truly was.