13 Meantime, however, O you who wonder and are astonished at the doctrines of the learned, and of philosophy, do you not then think it most unjust to scoff, to jeer at us as though we say foolish and senseless things, when you too are found to say either these or just such things which you laugh at when said and uttered by us? Nor do I address those who, scattered through various bypaths of the schools, have formed this and that insignificant party through diversity of opinion.
You, you I address, who zealously follow Mercury, Plato, and Pythagoras, and the rest of you who are of one mind, and walk in unity in the same paths of doctrine. Do you dare to laugh at us because we revere and worship the Creator and Lord of the universe, and because we commit and entrust our hopes to Him? What does your Plato say in the Theoetetus, to mention him especially? Does he not exhort the soul to flee from the earth, and, as much as in it lies, to be continually engaged in thought and meditation about Him? Do you dare to laugh at us, because we say that there will be a resurrection of the dead?
And this indeed we confess that wee say, but maintain that it is understood by you otherwise than we hold it. What says the same Plato in the Politicus? Does he not say that, when the world has begun to rise out of the west and tend towards the east, men will again burst forth from the bosom of the earth, aged, grey-haired, bowed down with years; and that when the remoter years begin to draw near, they will gradually sink down to the cradles of their infancy, through the same steps by which they now grow to manhood? Do you dare to laugh at us because we see to the salvation of our souls?— that is, ourselves care for ourselves: for what are we men, but souls shut up in bodies?— You, indeed, do not take every pains for their safety, in that you do not refrain from all vice and passion; about this you are anxious, that you may cleave to your bodies as though inseparably bound to them. — What mean those mystic rites, in which you beseech some unknown powers to be favourable to you, and not put any hindrance in your way to impede you when returning to your native seats?
Source: Against the Heathen (New Advent)