Celsus denies that the Jews have anything special
Let us also look at what Celsus says next. In it, very little concerns the Christians and most concerns the Jews. He says, then:
“If, then, the Jews were to guard their own law on these grounds, they are not to be blamed for it; rather, those are to be blamed who have abandoned their own ways and taken up those of the Jews. But if they pride themselves on knowing something wiser, and turn away from fellowship with others as not equally pure, they have already heard that not even their doctrine about heaven is their own; but, to pass over everything else, it was held long ago by the Persians too, as Herodotus somewhere shows. ‘For they are accustomed,’ he says, ‘to go up to the highest peaks of the mountains and offer sacrifices to Zeus, calling the whole circle of heaven Zeus’ (Herodotus 1.131). I think, then, that it makes no difference whether one calls Zeus the Most High, or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or Amoun, as the Egyptians do, or Papaeus, as the Scythians do.
“Nor, indeed, would they be holier than the others on these grounds: because they are circumcised, for the Egyptians and the Colchians did this before them; nor because they abstain from swine, for the Egyptians do this too, and besides that they abstain from goats and sheep and oxen and fish; and Pythagoras and his disciples abstain from beans, and from everything that has a soul. Nor is it likely that these people are in good standing with God or loved by him in any way differently from the others, or that angels are sent from there to them alone, as though they had been allotted some land of the blessed. For we see what both they and their land have been thought worthy of.
“So let this band depart, having paid the penalty for its boasting. It did not know the great God, but was led astray and deceived by the sorcery of Moses, and it became a pupil of that sorcery to no good end.”
Greek
Ἴδωμεν δὲ καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς τῷ Κέλσῳ λεγόμενα. ἐν οἷς σφόδρα μὲν ἐλάχιστά ἐστι τὰ περὶ Χριστιανῶν πλεῖστα δὲ ὅσα περὶ Ἰουδαίων. φησὶν οὖν· εἰ μὲν δὴ κατὰ ταῦτα περιστέλλοιεν Ἰουδαῖοι τὸν ἴδιον νόμον, οὐ μεμπτὰ αὐτῶν, ἐκείνων δὲ μᾶλλον, τῶν καταλιπόντων τὰ σφέτερα καὶ τὰ Ἰουδαίων προσποιουμένων. εἰ δ᾿ ὥς τι σοφώτερον εἰδότες σεμνύνονταί τε καὶ τὴν ἄλλων κοινωνίαν (ὡς) οὐκ ἐξ ἴσου καθαρῶν ἀποστρέφονται, ἤδη ἀκηκόασιν ὅτι οὐδὲ τὸ περὶ οὐρανοῦ δόγμα ἴδιον λέγουσιν ἀλλ᾿, ἵνα πάντα ἐάσω, καὶ Πέρσαις, ὥς που δηλοῖ καὶ Ἡρόδοτος, πάλαι δεδογμένον. „νομίζουσι γὰρ,“ φησὶ, „Διῒ μὲν ἐπὶ τὰ ὑψηλότατα τῶν ὀρέων ἀναβαίνοντες θυσίας ἔρδειν, τὸν κύκλον πάντα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ Δία καλέοντες.“ οὐδὲν οὖν οἶμαι διαφέρειν Δία Ὕψιστον καλεῖν ἢ Ζῆνα ἢ Ἀδωναῖον ἢ Σαβαὼθ ἢ Ἀμοῦν, ὡς Αἰγύπτιοι, ἢ Παπαῖον, ὡς Σκύθαι. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ κατὰ ταῦτα ἁγιώτεροι τῶν ἄλλων ἂν εἶεν. ὅτι περιτέμνονται· τοῦτο γὰρ Αἰγύπτιοι καὶ Κόλχοι πρότεροι· οὐδ᾿ ὅτι συῶν ἀπέχονται· καὶ γὰρ τοῦτ᾿ Αἰγύπτιοι, καὶ προσέτι αἰγῶν τε καὶ οἰῶν καὶ βοῶν (τε) καὶ ἰχθύων, καὶ κυάμων γε Πυθαγόρας τε καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ καὶ ἐμψύχων ἁπάντων. οὐ μὴν οὐδ᾿ εὐδοκιμεῖν παρὰ τῷ θεῷ καὶ στέργεσθαι διαφόρως τι τῶν ἄλλων τούτους εἰκὸς, καὶ πέμπεσθαι μόνοις αὐτοῖς ἐκεῖθεν ἀγγέλους. οἷον δή τινα μακάρων χώραν λαχοῦσιν· ὁρῶμεν γὰρ αὐτούς τε καὶ τὴν χώραν τίνων ἠξίωνται. οὗτος μὲν οὖν ὁ χορὸς ἀπίτω δίκην ἀλαζονείας ὑποσχὼν, οὐκ εἰδὼς τὸν μέγαν θεὸν ἀλλ᾿ ὑπὸ τῆς Μωϋσέως γοητείας ὑπαχθείς τε καὶ ψευσθεὶς κἀκείνης οὐκ ἐπ᾿ ἀγαθῷ τέλει γεγονὼς μαθητής.