25. I do not know how Celsus came to hear tell of an oath being taken by elephants, and that they show more fidelity towards the Divine Being than we men, and that they have a knowledge of God. I know a good many marvellous stories about the animal and its docility, but I am not aware that any one has spoken of an elephant's oaths, unless, perhaps, Celsus calls their docility and the sort of covenant they make once for all with men, the keeping of an oath; but that again is absurd. There are instances, though rare, of elephants, after seeming to be tamed, fiercely attacking men and killing them, and of their being therefore condemned to death as of no further use. And. to prove his point, as he thinks, that the stork has more piety than men, our opponent adduces what is related about its loving and cherishing its parents and bringing them food. I must therefore add that even this conduct of the storks does not proceed from a regard to what is right, nor from reasoning, but from nature, it |136 being nature's aim in fashioning them, to set an example in irrational creatures strong enough to shame men into showing gratitude to their parents. If Celsus had known the vast difference between doing these things with the aid of reason and doing them without the aid of reason, and by the mere impulses of nature, he would never have said that storks have more piety than men. Further, as if determined to uphold the piety of irrational creatures, Celsus adduces the fable of the Arabian creature, the Phoenix, which is said to visit Egypt at long intervals, and to bring its father, dead and buried in a globe of myrrh, and deposit the remains at the temple of the Sun. Now, even supposing what is here related to be true, it may be the result of natural processes; for Divine Providence has even in the different constitutions of living creatures given proof to man of the rich variety to be found in the ordering of the world, a variety extending even to the birds; and it brought into being a unique creature, not that men might marvel at the creature, but at its Creator.