Celsus mocks the hope of the resurrection

He says, then: “It is foolish of them also to think that when God, like a cook, brings on the fire, all the rest of the race will be roasted through, while they alone will survive, not only the living but also those who died long ago, rising up from the earth in that very same flesh. This is simply the hope of worms. For what human soul would still long for a body that has rotted? Seeing that this doctrine is not shared even by some among you and among the Christians, one may show how utterly foul and loathsome it is, and at the same time impossible. For what body, once wholly corrupted, can return to its original nature, and to that very first make-up from which it was dissolved? Having nothing to answer, they flee to a most absurd refuge: that everything is possible to God (Matthew 19:26). But God cannot do what is shameful, nor does he will what is against nature. Nor, if you in your own depravity desire something vile, will God be able to do it, nor need one believe at once that it will happen. For God is the author not of faulty appetite, nor of wandering disorder, but of right and just nature. He could grant everlasting life to a soul; but ‘corpses’, says Heraclitus, ‘are more fit to be thrown out than dung’ (Heraclitus, fragment 96). As for flesh, full of things it is not even decent to name, God will neither wish nor be able to make it everlasting against reason. For he himself is the reason of all things that exist; he can therefore do nothing contrary to reason, nor contrary to himself.”